The purpose of this thread is to give your experiences of where you have been/any advice/places to visit etc etc etc & of course, lets get some pictures up

My son & I rented a couple of bikes while out in Mallorca over the easter holidays.

 

We were staying just outside Can Picafort & had been in contact with a couple of bike rental shops prior to flying out there.  With my son being 9yr old and wanting a road bike our available choices were very slim indeed, Velo Plus had a 24" wheeled Focus and Wheels Sport had an xxs Eddie Mercx for him to try, sadly the Mercx was too long in the reach for him so he settled on the Focus from Velo Plus.  Due to availability of bikes in my size, I ended up with a Focus from Velo Plus for 3 days and a Mercx from Wheels Sport for 4 days.

 

Both shops were very accomodating and spoke great English.  Velo Plus gave a spare innertube & mini toolkit as part of the hire price, Wheels Sport didn't & I chose to buy a spare tube & mini toolkit.  All bikes came very well setup, although I did tweak the gears on my focus as there was a delay in them changing.  The Mercx Sallanches 64 is a fantastic bike and was much nicer to ride than the Focus I had hired. 

 

Upon collection of our bikes, both shops fitted our own pedals & we were then ready to-go.  Oliver soon got the hang of the brakes being left hand front, right hand rear & riding on my right hand side.  After 2 days of riding he asked why no motorists had made a close pass & why their road surfaces were so good, how do you respond to that?

 

The cycling infrastructure is amazing where we were, we rode in all directions from Can Picafort over the weeks bike hire, up-to Port de Pollencia (fantastic ice creams), down to Arta & went around the castle, across to Puig d Santa Magdalena where we had a cracking lunch.  

 

Oliver is very fit but as with most children, he does struggle a little with adult drop brakes and therefore we decided doing any major mountain climbs wouldn't be advisable on this trip, which left me to cycle Cap de Formentor while Oliver caught a lift to the lighthouse with his grandparents in the car. As he didn't cycle this, I promised to take him over Holmemoss when we returned home, he completed the climb in a very respectable 20 minutes. 

 

We worked out, if going for 1week or less, it would be cheaper to hire bikes when there, if going for longer than 1 week, we will be taking our own bikes.

 

We can't recommend road cycling in Mallorca enough, we can't comment on mountain biking as we didn't do any.

 

A few pics of the route up Cap de Formentor

 

A few pics of Oliver on his various travels

Edited 2 May, 20179 yr by DarkPeakCycles

Excellent idea. Makes me think what facilities there are in Menorca when we go in October?

 

Did you take your own pedals / shoes and helmets?

4 minutes ago, Coops said:

Excellent idea. Makes me think what facilities there are in Menorca when we go in October?

 

Did you take your own pedals / shoes and helmets?

Yes, we took our own shoes/helmet/pedals.  For the bike shops that we went into, it seemed to be normal, they were quite supprised to see Oliver having his own spd's & cycling shoes

I went to Gran Canaria in December with my brother. We stayed in Puerto de Mogan and hired Cannondale Synapse carbon framed bikes from free-motion. Took our own helmets, shoes and water bottles. The bikes came fitted with SPD-SL pedals and bottle cages. If you fancy a day off the bike there is plenty to do there as well. For anyone looking to go biking somewhere dry and warm in the winter I'd definitely recommend it!