Guido Eickelbeck Cycling Events on Mallorca

An autumn cycling holiday on Mallorca

The cycling holiday season has started again and countless touring groups are riding through the island's rural back roads, quiet service lanes and narrow alleyways, sweeping in each other's slipstream up the fast roads from Palma towards Llucmajor or startling local drivers with daring manoeuvres in the tight streets of the pueblos. The trend towards friendly team holidays on Mallorca is confirmed once again, the local bike hire firms and cycling tour operators are enjoying rising revenues, and cycling on Mallorca is booming.

Guido Eickelbeck has carved out a niche in this travel market, organising exclusive lifestyle cycling trips for corporations, private entrepreneurs and cycling-mad VIPs from all over the world. After his time as a professional cyclist and event manager with the Deutsche Telekom cycling team, he was drawn to the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, where he lives and works as a bike guide and travel manager for unmistakable cycling events. The infrastructure, with short flight times to mainland Europe and the extensive cycling network on Mallorca, means that Guido Eickelbeck organises and runs cycling events and tour guiding with growing success on the Balearic island. The last weeks of September and October are typical months with ideal climatic conditions for a sporting cycling holiday. Alongside the main cycling months in spring, Guido Eickelbeck now has plenty to do at this time of year too.

"These days I sometimes even have two or three clients to look after at the same time," says Eickelbeck.

Inselrad joined Guido Eickelbeck for a typical working day. An international company with its own 15-strong cycling team from New York City is one of the touring groups he looks after; he has put them up at the elegant country estate and five-star hotel Reads near Santa Maria, while another group is staying at the upmarket St. Regis Mardavall Hotel in Portals. There, early in the morning, he meets Liz Hatch for breakfast, a former professional cyclist and Playboy model, with whom Guido rides the first kilometres of the day before his real day begins. That involves a performance check and a one-hour training session for his wealthy client at the Mardavall Hotel, after which he heads to the touring group at Reads and rides a 100 km loop with them over the Tramuntana mountains, down the west coast of Mallorca as far as Andratx and back to Palma, before yet another cycling-obsessed manager from a major German car manufacturer wants to discuss the following day's route over champagne and caviar at the Nikki Beach Club. After a short siesta it is time for the evening programme with his American cycling team, which begins with dinner at 'La Rueda 23' in Genova and may well end late in the marina at Portals, before it is back on the road bike at eight the next morning.

Mallorca on a bike is pure relaxation

The bike hire sector is also benefiting from the booming interest in cycling and cycling trips to the Balearics, with ever more bikes to be seen on the island's roads. Guido Eickelbeck Cycling Events are tailored to road cycling tours, and the right bike is easy to find at one of the many hire firms offering road bikes, mountain bikes, trekking bikes as well as women's, men's and children's bikes. Carbon or aluminium, whatever the type or specification, Mallorca boasts an excellent network of bike rental outlets.