Mallorca: A Week's Training Camp, Two Bases, Six Rides
Mallorca is where most of Europe's cyclists end up in spring. From February through May the airport fills with bike boxes, the bay roads are busy by seven, and the hotels have built their routines around riders.
Most people pick one hotel and ride from it for a week. The mistake: half the best roads are too far to reach as day rides. The Tramuntana spans the entire west coast — Cap de Formentor and Lluc at the north, Andratx and Valldemossa at the south — and one base only opens half of it. A real training week here splits between two.
This is what that week looks like.
Arriving
Palma de Mallorca's airport is twenty minutes from the centre of Palma and about an hour from the northern coast at Alcúdia. From the UK, Germany, or the Nordics you're looking at two-and-a-half to three hours in the air. If you're flying with a bike box, book the rental car or transfer in advance — ride-sharing apps don't take bike bags reliably, and the airport queue for taxis with hatchback capacity gets thin in March when half the planes are unloading bike-camp groups.
Most cyclists hire a car for the week. It's the simplest way to ferry a bike box plus luggage, and it gives you the pivot from base one to base two on day four without choreography. If you're flying light and renting on the island, the bus from the airport runs hourly to both Palma and Alcúdia for a few euros each.
Why two bases
The Tramuntana spine is what makes Mallorca great and what makes one base insufficient. The road that runs along its ridge connects Andratx in the southwest to Pollença in the north, but the climbs that branch off it face inward — toward different valleys, different bays, different prevailing winds.
From the north — Pollença, Alcúdia, Playa de Muro — you wake up next to the Bay of Alcúdia, and your first climbs are short approaches to Coll de Femenia, Coll de sa Batalla, and the long peninsular spin out to Cap de Formentor. These are the rides cyclists associate with Mallorca: rolling flat through orange groves, then a sustained climb, then the famous descent past the lighthouse.
From the southwest — Palma, Andratx — the same mountain range looks different. Now you're climbing into it from below: the long pull to Valldemossa, the coastal stair-step through Estellencs and Banyalbufar, the famous switchback to Sa Calobra if you make the journey north. The roads are narrower, the towns smaller, the cafés more local.
Spending a week from one base means missing half the menu. Splitting the week — three days north, transfer day, three days south — solves it.
First base: Playa de Muro
The northern bay of Alcúdia and Playa de Muro is the cycling-camp heartland. Most of the bike-marketing in Mallorca traces back to a handful of resorts here — properties that have been hosting groups for fifteen years and have routine down to a science: secure storage, mechanic on site, breakfast at six, group rides leaving at seven-fifteen.
The Playa Esperanza Resort sits on the long sandy beach south of Alcúdia town. It's the quieter, more boutique-feeling option — fewer big tour groups, calmer dining rooms, the same one-minute roll-out to the coast road. The Iberostar Waves Playa De Muro, a few hundred metres north along the same stretch, is the bigger, more established cycling-camp brand: organised rides, the largest workshop on this side of the island, and a buzz of riders that some love and others find too loud at breakfast.
Pick by what you want most: small and calm (Playa Esperanza), or full bike-camp infrastructure with a peloton at the breakfast buffet (Iberostar). Both put you on the same set of roads.
If you're flying without a bike, two rental shops cover the area. Enjoy Bike Coffee combines a workshop with a café — drop the bike in, drink an espresso, and the fit is dialled by the time you're done. Bici Med is the older, no-frills option in Pollença, with a wide fleet and same-day repair if something breaks on the road. Reserve in February for any peak-season week.
Or — easier — let RideLodge sort it for you. Every stay on the site is ranked by what cyclists actually need: secure storage, on-site mechanics, rides from the door, and reviews from people who arrived with a bike. Filter by your dates and the matches surface in seconds.
Discover bike-friendly stays in Mallorca →
Day one: legs in
The first day of any camp is the leg-loosener. From Playa de Muro you roll south through the shallow farmland behind the bay — flat tarmac, the smell of orange groves, traffic that hasn't woken up — and loop back through Sa Pobla and Muro. Fifty kilometres, eighty minutes of riding, no climbs to speak of. The point is to remember what your bike feels like after the flight and to get the chain quiet.
Day two: Cap de Formentor
The peninsular ride. Eighty kilometres, the climb to Mirador de la Creueta, the lighthouse at the tip, the photo every cyclist takes against the rocks. The road climbs in three steps, none of them steep, and the wind on the descent — depending on direction — either gives you free time or fights you the whole way back. Stop in Pollença on the return for an espresso under the plane trees in the square. This is the day you start to feel like you're on camp.
Day three: into the mountains
The first proper climbing day. Up Coll de Femenia out of Pollença, along the ridge to Lluc — the monastery at 525 metres where almost every long Mallorca ride passes through — and back down. A hundred and ten kilometres, fifteen hundred metres of climbing. By the time you're spinning home along the bay road, the legs are open. You've done the build.
Transfer day
The day people skip and shouldn't. A short coastal spin in the morning — thirty kilometres, no pressure, just legs turning over — and then the drive south. Palma is ninety minutes from Alcúdia by road, and you'll arrive with time for an unhurried lunch and an afternoon nap before the second half of camp begins. The mistake is making this an off day entirely; the better plan is a short opener and an early bed.
Second base: Palma
Palma is a city, and that changes the camp's tone. The northern base was about the rhythm of a resort — same breakfast room, same group rolling out at seven. Palma is street-level: tapas in the evening, local cafés that aren't built around cyclists, the cathedral lit up against the bay at night. The riding from here climbs into the Tramuntana from the south — different roads, different angles, the same range you've been looking at all week.
The Helios Mallorca Hotel & Apartments is in Can Pastilla, just east of the airport. It's the practical, no-fuss option — secure bike room, easy roll-out west toward the climbs, ten minutes to the city centre when you want it. Isla Mallorca & Spa sits in central Palma, closer to the cathedral and the old town, with a wellness floor that earns its place after the queen stage of day six.
Pick by what you want from your evenings: pool and quiet (Helios), or city walks and aperitivo on a square (Isla). Both put you within ninety minutes' ride of the same major climbs.
For rentals on this side of the island, Berganti Bikes Mallorca is the one to know. They run a workshop in Palma with a road, gravel, and electric fleet, and they'll deliver to your hotel — useful when you're not planning to walk across the city with a bike. Reserve at least a week ahead in season.
Discover bike-friendly stays in Mallorca →
Day five: the coastal Tramuntana
The Andratx loop. Out of Palma along the coast road, the climbs to Estellencs and Banyalbufar stacking up against the sea — the road threading between cliffs and water, the kind of corner you slow down for not because of the gradient but because of the view. Eighty-five kilometres, twelve hundred metres of climbing. The cafés in Estellencs are some of the best on the island — small, run by locals, the coffee comes in a glass.
Day six: the queen stage
This is the day the camp peaks. Sa Calobra is the descent that makes Mallorca's reputation — twelve switchbacks down to the sea, then the same twelve back up with seven percent ramps that don't relent. Combined with Puig Major approached via the Sóller tunnel, you get a 130-kilometre ride with twenty-five hundred metres of climbing. Leave at seven. Bring two bidons. Eat on the descent because once you're at the bottom of Sa Calobra there's nothing to do but climb back out.
Day seven: recovery
The recovery day is short, social, and ends at a café. A flat thirty-kilometre spin out of Palma along the bay road, coffee at one of the cycling-friendly stops in Portixol, then back. After lunch, the beach. The cathedral at sunset. A meal that doesn't end with espresso on the bike.
When to come
Mallorca's cycling season is long but not flat. Mid-February through early May is the build window — cool mornings, warm afternoons, fields of almond blossom giving way to citrus. June and September are warm but quieter. July and August are too hot for ambitious climbing days; locals ride at six and finish before nine. November and December are mild but unreliable — the rain comes in cycles. The sweet spot for a serious week is late March through April: weather settled, days long enough for ten-hour rides, and the airport not yet at peak chaos.
Why you'll come back
There's a particular feeling on day six, sitting on a Palma terrace with the queen stage in your legs, watching the cathedral light up over the water, when you realise the week worked. Not because the riding is the best in Europe — though it is — but because Mallorca packs the architecture of a real training camp into seven days and two bases. The same baker. The same coffee. The same quiet feeling of arriving back at the hotel a little fitter than you left it.
You came to ride a famous island. You'll leave with three things: the long pull up to Lluc, the photo at Formentor, and the silent climb out of Sa Calobra when nobody in the group is talking because the legs have nothing left.
That's why people come back.