Mallorca 312: Training Plan & Rider's Guide

The Mallorca 312 is the kind of ride you don’t drift into. It’s a 312 km closed-road loop of the island with around 5,050 m of climbing, starting in Playa de Muro on a Saturday in late April alongside 7,000-plus other riders. Roads are shut for the day, the scenery is the best in European cycling, and the clock is unforgiving — but none of that makes the distance any shorter. Finishing it well is a training problem first, and the riders who enjoy the day are almost always the ones who did the boring work in the months before.

This guide is about that work: how to build toward the 312, how to pace and fuel a ride that can take ten to fourteen hours, and what each part of the route actually feels like. It is preparation advice, not the event handbook — for dates, entry, the cut-off and past results, see our Mallorca 312 race page, which is the canonical place for the year-by-year details. The official organiser is Club Ciclista Pollença. Treat the training and fuelling here as sound general endurance-cycling guidance, not a prescription — adapt it to your own body, history and coach if you have one.

What the 312 demands

Start with the numbers, because they set everything else. The full route is 312 km with roughly 5,050 m of climbing, ridden as a single loop of Mallorca on closed roads. The big climbing is concentrated in the first half, in the Serra de Tramuntana, before the route turns east and rolls back across flatter, more exposed terrain to the finish in Playa de Muro.

Two things make this harder than the raw distance suggests. The first is duration: most riders are out for ten to fourteen hours, and the time cut-off for the 312 is typically around 14 hours from the rolling start — confirm the exact figure for your year on the race page and the official site, as it can change. The second is the shape of the day: you climb hard early when you’re fresh, then have to hold a steady, lonely effort for hours across the flatter east when the legs are gone. Most people who miss the cut-off don’t blow up on the mountains — they fade on the long, flat second half because they overcooked the climbs.

So the demand isn’t really “be a strong climber.” It’s “be able to ride all day, climb efficiently without going into the red, and keep eating for fourteen hours.” That’s what you train.

Choosing your distance

Three distances share the same start, which is the smartest thing about the event: you can commit to a goal that matches your training, not your ego.

• 167 km stays in the Tramuntana foothills. It’s the shortest option but still a serious mountain ride — a realistic target for a fit rider who can’t commit to the biggest volume, or a strong first gran fondo.
• 225 km splits off at Lluc and rejoins the course via Inca, cutting out the far-eastern loop. It keeps the marquee climbing but trims the long flat slog, making it a big step up from the 167 without the full 312’s time demand.
• 312 km is the whole island: the full Tramuntana sequence, then east through Manacor and back to Playa de Muro. This is the one with the cut-off pressure and the all-day fuelling problem.

Be honest about which one your last six months of riding actually support. There’s no shame in the 167 or 225 — finishing one comfortably is far better preparation for a future 312 than scraping the full distance once and hating it.

The build-up: a training plan

Treat the run-in as a progression with four overlapping phases. The exact week count depends on where you’re starting, but a focused twelve to sixteen weeks is a sensible window for most riders building from a reasonable base. The principle is simple: build aerobic volume first, then teach the body to climb repeatedly, then teach it to do that when already tired, then back off so it all surfaces on the day.

Phase 1 — Base (the first several weeks). Build aerobic engine and weekly hours, mostly in steady zone 2 endurance. Don’t chase intensity yet; chase consistency and a slowly rising long ride. This is the foundation that makes everything later possible — and it’s where most under-prepared riders cut corners.

Phase 2 — Long rides. Progressively extend your weekend long ride. A useful progression is to push the longest ride up every week or two — something like 100 → 130 → 160 → 200+ km — with an easier “down” week roughly every fourth week so you absorb the work. The single most race-specific session you can do is one long ride at or beyond 200 km, so you’ve solved the fuelling, position and mental side of being on the bike for many hours before race day, not during it.

Phase 3 — Back-to-back climbing. Now add the thing the 312 actually tests: climbing on tired legs. A Saturday–Sunday block of two big rides, each with real elevation, teaches the body to keep producing power into a second long day — the exact demand of riding the Tramuntana early and grinding the flat east later. If you can’t train in genuine mountains, repeat your longest local climb until the total elevation gets near event scale.

Phase 4 — Taper. In the final week to ten days, cut volume sharply while keeping a little intensity so you stay sharp. You don’t gain fitness in the last fortnight — you only lose it by arriving tired. Resist the urge to “test the legs” days before. Arrive fresh, slightly bored, and itching to go.

Across all of it, most of your riding should be easy — endurance pace, conversational. The hard days are deliberately few. A typical week in the heart of the block: one long endurance ride, one climbing-focused or back-to-back block, one or two short quality sessions, and the rest easy spinning or rest. If you have to choose between one more hard session and one more hour of sleep, sleep.

Pacing and fuelling a 10–14 hour day

This is where the 312 is won or lost. The governing idea: ride the first half slower than feels natural. The early mountains are thrilling and you’ll be in a fast bunch on fresh legs — and that’s precisely the trap. Climb at your sustainable effort, not the wheel in front. Energy spent showing off on Femenia is energy you won’t have for the flat hours that decide your day.

Fuelling is a discipline you run from the gun. The rough principle for all-day endurance is to eat early and constantly, aiming for a steady stream of carbohydrate every hour rather than waiting until you’re hungry. By the time you feel empty it’s already too late, and clawing back from a deep bonk is grim. Drink to thirst-plus, use the feed stations, and don’t experiment with anything you haven’t used on a long training ride. Practise your exact fuelling on those 200 km build-up days so race day is a rehearsal, not an experiment. Settle into legal, sensible groups on the flat to share the wind — the riders who finish strong are the ones who were boringly disciplined for the first eight hours.

The climbs, in sequence

The Tramuntana does its work early, in a recognisable order. Knowing what’s coming helps you ration effort.

1. Coll de Femenia — the first real test, reached early while the bunch is still huge and fast. The discipline here is to not race it. Climb steady, stay fuelled, let the eager riders go.
2. Coll de sa Batalla — a long, steady gradient that rewards a settled rhythm. This is where holding back on Femenia starts to pay off.
3. Puig Major — the island’s high point and the longest sustained drag of the day. Pace it like a time trial against yourself: even effort, keep eating, don’t surge.
4. Coll de Sóller — switchbacks and a more rhythmic climb; technique and a smooth cadence matter more than power here.
5. Coll d’Honor — the last of the marquee Tramuntana climbs before the route turns away from the mountains.

After Honor the character changes completely. The course swings east through Manacor and back to Playa de Muro across flatter, more exposed roads — far less climbing but far more mental work, long wind-affected kilometres where company and steady eating get you home. Respect this section in advance; many riders mentally “finish” at the top of the last climb and then suffer for hours they didn’t plan for. To ride these climbs before the event, each links to its own page, and you can stitch practice loops together with the route planner or browse curated routes.

Bike, gear and the early rollout

Your bike needs to be road-legal and in good order — the event requires an AT-certified, road-legal machine, and you’ll want it mechanically bulletproof for a long day. The single most important fit decision is gearing: the climbs here are long, not just steep, so a compact chainset and a wide-range cassette will protect your legs over hours of climbing. Fit climbing gears well before the event and test them on a big day, or, if you’re renting, ask for them explicitly. Compare options on the bike rentals hub.

Two practical, event-specific points. First, the start is in the dark — the early rollout happens before dawn, and lights are required, so fit a working front and rear light and don’t treat it as an afterthought. Second, dress for a long day with a big temperature range: cold, dark valleys at the start, warm mid-morning mountains, and exposed flat roads later. A packable gilet and arm warmers in a pocket cover most of it. Carry spares and the tools to fix a flat yourself — with thousands of riders on course, you don’t want to lose your day waiting for help.

Entry itself also requires a road racing licence, or the day-licence that registration bundles through the federation — another detail to confirm year by year on the race page rather than assuming.

Where to stay and getting there

The start and finish are in Playa de Muro, in the north of the island, so basing nearby keeps race morning simple — a short, calm roll to a pre-dawn start beats a drive in the dark. The whole north coast is geared toward cyclists; browse cycling-friendly hotels for beds with secure bike storage and early breakfasts, and book early, because the event weekend fills the area fast.

If you’re flying in, give yourself a couple of days before the event to build or collect the bike, shake out the legs, and adjust — don’t arrive the night before. For more on timing a trip around the island’s seasons, see our guide to the best time to cycle Mallorca, and if you’re combining the event with a longer block, the training camp guide covers structuring a full week.

One last logistics note worth repeating from the race page: registration runs through Club Ciclista Pollença, typically opens in late November, and usually sells out in under 24 hours. If the 312 is your goal, plan your entry as carefully as your training — confirm the current dates, fees and rules on the official site, because they change yearly.

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