Mallorca cycling week itinerary: six days from one town

Book the week in Port de Pollença.

It is not the prettiest town on the island; stay there for where it sits. The eight cycling weeks currently sold or written for Mallorca all include two climbs, in every single one: Sa Calobra and Cap de Formentor. Of the island’s 18 base towns, only one can ride to both of them inside a normal day, out and back, and Port de Pollença is that town.

From there the week is 501 km, 3,852 m of climbing and 36 hairpins across 6 riding days, with the queen day — 93.0 km and 1,231 m — sitting mid-week and a rest day behind it.

If you have already booked somewhere else, skip to what your hotel costs you. The town you stay in changes a week’s climbing by a factor of 3.1, and it is the one choice here that can ruin a trip.

The two climbs in every published Mallorca week

8 publishers put a Mallorcan week in writing, either day by day or as a named set of rides. Count the climbs they name and you get what a week here usually contains, whichever company you book with.

How we got this A climb counts as named when the page carries one of its rider-facing names. Shares are out of the published weeks only: a coaching article about camp structure names no Mallorcan climb because it is not about Mallorca, and counting it would lower every share.Computed from every page found that publishes the rides of a multi-day Mallorcan trip and can be read without an account.Computed 3 October 2026.

The second column matters. A rider who says Formentor means the whole road out to the lighthouse, which has more than one rise on it. A rider who says Sa Calobra means the descent and the climb back out, and that col has its own name. Every figure to the right of that column is for the climb in the second column (climbs here count each direction up a pass separately), not for the whole ride the name brings to mind.

How often a climb is named and how hard it is do not line up.

Sa Calobra is named by all eight and ranks first of 75. Those two agree. Cap de Formentor is named by all eight and ranks 37th. sa Batalla ranks 5th and is named by 1 of 8. After Sa Calobra, the published weeks choose climbs for the scenery: a lighthouse at the end of a peninsula, and a road that photographs like a dropped ribbon. A week copied from that list includes both of them and leaves out the 5th-hardest climb on the island.

Ride both anyway; they deserve their place. Just know what you are signing up for when you book a week built from the same list.

Where to stay: one town in eighteen reaches both

The last column shows how many towns can ride to each climb.

Sa Calobra is at the bottom of a dead-end road: you ride over the top, drop 708 m to the sea, and the only way out is back up. Out and back on rideable roads, that day fits inside a normal 90 km ride from exactly 3 of the 18 base towns: Sóller, Port de Sóller, Port de Pollença. Cap de Formentor fits from 5, the towns along the northern bays.

Only one town is on both lists. From every other base on the island, at least one of the two rides in every published week needs a hire car.

The week itself

Six riding days and one off, from Port de Pollença, in April.

How we got this Easiest day opens, the hardest sits mid-week, a rest day follows it and the last day stays short for the flight. No climb is ridden twice. Distances count the approach and the climb both ways; climbing counts each climb's measured gain once, and the climbing on the approach roads is left out.Computed from the same road matrix, the climb records, and the official routes that pass through the town.Computed 6 August 2026.

That is the shape two of the three coaches quoted here prescribe, and only half the published weeks follow it: easiest day first, hardest in the middle, the day off straight after it. Mallorca Cycle Shuttle says it with the week written out: "alternate big and easy days". Mallorca Cycling Lab, whose seven days are the most detailed of the eight, puts it best: "The order is flexible; the shape isn’t."

The third coach does not. Roadman Cycling prescribes no order at all: "A rigid seven-day template cannot account for travel, weather, route changes, illness, training history or how one rider responds to the same group pace." Read the table as the order to start from, then move the hard day if you land tired or the wind turns. The day off is the one thing all three of them keep.

Even so, 4 of the 8 published weeks name a rest or recovery day at all. The other half sell seven straight days of riding to people who have flown in to ride, which suits the booking more than your legs. Take the day. It goes on day 5 in the table above, the day after the queen.

If you land at lunchtime, change the order. Day one is 96.6 km, which is a lot to ride in an afternoon after an airport. Mallorca Cycling Lab says so bluntly: "Don’t be a hero on the first day.". Ride day 6 first instead: 41.8 km and 485 m is an easy leg-opener you can start at four in the afternoon and still be back for dinner.

What the hotel decides

This is the number that should decide your booking, and no operator page gives it.

Build the same week (same six days, same 90 km, same rules) from every base town on the island, and its climbing runs from 4,389 m in Valldemossa to 1,404 m in Colònia de Sant Jordi. That is a factor of 3.1×: the same week and the same effort, with a third of the climbing.

Widen it from one week to everything a town can reach in a day and the gap opens further: Palma puts 12,245 m of measured climbing inside a day’s ride, Colònia de Sant Jordi puts 1,779 m — a factor of 6.9.

How we got this One out-and-back day per climb — out to the foot, up, and home — kept when it fits the 90 km day. Each climb, counting each direction up a pass separately, counts once however many days can reach it, and its own measured gain is what is summed. The figure is how much climbing lies within a day's ride of the town, and is not itself one ride.Computed from the road distance from each town's own place node to every published climb foot, over the ridable graph.Computed 6 August 2026.

Palma reaches more climbing than anywhere else, 12,245 m across 57 climbs, but only 5 of the ten climbs people book the trip for. Platja de Muro reaches52.0% of that climbing and 7 of the ten. The famous roads and the most road are in different corners of the island, so decide which one you came for before you choose where to stay.

Which month to go: daylight is enough even in December

Most riders book spring, for the weather and for the daylight. The daylight reason does not hold up.

Every ride you can build here, 3,583 of them, from all 18 towns, at all four riding paces, fits inside the daylight of the island’s darkest month. All of them. In mid-December the sun rises at 08:03 and sets at 17:27, 10 h 24 of light. The longest single ride on the island, the 130.3 km, 2,445 m Serra de Tramuntana - Sud loop from Sóller, takes 10 h 11 at the slower of the two pace estimates, with 90 minutes of daylight still in hand. 13 minutes to spare on the shortest day of the year, on the biggest ride on the island.

How we got this Each ride is timed at the slower of that pace's two riding models, with a 90-minute margin before the light runs out. Both choices are cautious: if you ride at the faster model, or are willing to use the last of the light, you have more time than these figures show.Computed from every ride that can be built from all 18 base towns at all four riding paces (3,583 of them), against the mid-month light window of the island's darkest month.Computed 6 August 2026.

So if you rule out December, do it for the cold, the rain days or the shut cafés; those are real. Daylight is not a reason to rule it out.

What changes your day is the hour you start. The sea breeze arrives between 11:00 and 13:00 in every month of the year, so on your hard days, roll out early. Mallorca Cycle Shuttle gives another reason for the same early start: "rolling out after 9 when traffic wakes up". The wind guide has the hour by month.

Know before you ride

The queen day is a dead end. Sa Calobra descends 708 m to a bay with a car park, a couple of cafés and no road out. A boat runs in season, but do not plan around it. Whatever you have left at the bottom is what you climb back out on.

The camps ride the same roads, and they ride them in groups. Eight published weeks send riders to the same climbs in the same season. Expect company on everything in the table above, and a queue at the top of the two that all eight name.

Keep the rest day off the bike. Half the published weeks leave it out, and every coach quoted here says to take it. You will be tempted on the Wednesday.

Day one is the easiest day to get wrong. The usual mistake is riding too far after a flight, a bike build and a hire pickup. The short day is in the table; move it to the front.

The two ends of the island are different holidays. Colònia de Sant Jordi’s week is 1,404 m, and that is a completely reasonable week if flat, fast and quiet is the trip you want. It is a bad week to book by accident.

Booking the week

A bed in the one town that can ride to both. Accommodation in Port de Pollença is the booking this guide recommends; the town’s own base page has the distances. If the dates are gone, Sóller keeps Sa Calobra and gives up Cap de Formentor, and Alcúdia does the reverse.

Getting there without the bike bag. Port de Pollença is the far end of the island from the airport; a transfer saves you folding a bike box into a hatchback. The arrival guide has the measured drive.

A bike waiting instead of a bike flown. The week above is 3,852 m with a 8.8% kilometre in it, so the sprocket matters more than the frame — compare hire bikes and their published gearing against the bike hire guide.

The car for the day you do not want one. If you are booked outside the two towns and want Sa Calobra anyway, compare car hire for the one day rather than the week.

How to read these numbers

Every distance here is a road distance over the ridable network, and every climbing figure is a measured gain. A day’s distance counts the approach and the climb both ways. Its climbing counts each climb’s own gain once; the approach roads add some climbing on top, and that extra is not included. Riding times are always a range between two stated pace models, because riders differ.

The week is composed for April at a classic pace: 90 km days, 700 to 1,300 m of climbing. Turn any of that into your own numbers in the trip planner, which reads the same records and will give you a different week from a different town.

The “Named by” column comes from 11 pages read on 3 October 2026: 8 that publish the rides of a multi-day trip, and 3 that give advice about one without printing an itinerary. Only the first group is counted. A coaching article is not about Mallorca and names no climbs here, so counting it would shrink every share in the table.

One further page is named at the foot of this section with what has become of it.

Andy Cook Cycling — Mallorca spring bike camp — this camp had no current page when last checked. It is listed here so you can see what the count leaves out.