Most cycling guides tell you how to plan a trip. This one just hands you the week. Below is a concrete, day-by-day itinerary for seven days of riding in Mallorca from a northern base — either Port de Pollença or Alcúdia — built the way a sensible coach would build it: a gentle start to shake off the travel, two days of building, a queen stage in the heart of the mountains, a genuine recovery day in the middle, then a second hard block before you ease down to fly home.
If you’d rather read about how to design your own camp from scratch, the training camp guide covers bases, kit and logistics. This page is the opposite: an actual sample week you can follow ride by ride, swap days around for weather, and scale up or down to your legs. Distances stay deliberately loose — you’ll find exact profiles on each climb and route page — because the right length for “Day 3” depends entirely on who you are. What’s fixed is the shape of the week and the roads it’s built on.
A quick word on the base. The north is the classic choice for a week like this because almost everything below is reachable from your front door, and you’ve got a flat bay to roll out on for the easy days. If you’re still deciding exactly where to stay, the cycling in Pollença and cycling in Alcúdia guides cover both ends of the bay. Now, the week.
Day 1 — Bay shake-out
Effort: very easy, ~1.5–2 hours. Don’t be a hero on the first day. After a flight, a bike build or a rental pickup, your only jobs are to confirm the bike works, wake the legs up and learn where the bay roads go. Roll a flat, gentle loop around the Bay of Pollença and Alcúdia — out toward the wetlands and back, or a lazy out-and-back along the seafront. Keep it in the bottom gears, stop for a coffee, fix anything that rattles. This is reconnaissance and admin, not training. If you rented a bike, this is the ride where you discover the saddle is two centimetres too high; sort it now, not on Day 3.
Day 2 — Cap de Formentor
Effort: moderate, ~2.5–3.5 hours. The most spectacular short ride on the island and the perfect Day 2: enough climbing to start opening the legs, short enough that you’re not digging a hole before the hard days. Ride out to the lighthouse at the island’s northern tip via the Cap de Formentor climb — a rolling, cliff-edge road with sea on both sides and a sting in the final ramps. Go early. The peninsula gets busy with traffic and tour buses by mid-morning, and the light at dawn is the reason people fly here. Treat it as endurance with one real effort on the climb to the lighthouse. The full out-and-back is captured in the Formentor lighthouse route.
Day 3 — Foothills builder via Coll de Femenia
Effort: moderate–hard, ~3.5–4.5 hours. Now you start building proper climbing legs. Head inland and up Coll de Femenia, a beautiful, steady, tree-lined climb that’s the natural gateway from the Pollença side into the high Tramuntana. From the top you drop toward the Lluc monastery — the spiritual centre of Mallorcan cycling and a classic café and refill stop. Take in the mountain air, eat properly, and ride home at an honest endurance pace. The point of Day 3 is volume and switchback practice, not records: you’re laying the foundation for tomorrow. Keep something in reserve.
Day 4 — The Sa Calobra queen stage
Effort: hard, the big day, ~4.5–6+ hours. This is the ride most people come to Mallorca for, and the centrepiece of the week. Climb up through the mountains, take in the island’s high point at Puig Major — a long, relentless drag that rewards patience — and then the main event: the descent and re-climb of Sa Calobra, the most famous stretch of tarmac on the island, a spiralling 26-bend wall that drops to the sea and forces you to ride every metre back up. Start at dawn, carry more food than you think you need, fill both bottles and respect the descents as much as the climbs. The Tramuntana queen route is the template for the whole loop. Pace the first hour like it’s easy — because the day is long, and the bottom of Sa Calobra is no place to be empty.
Day 5 — Es Pla recovery spin
Effort: very easy, ~2–3 hours. After the queen stage, the temptation is to keep climbing while you’re “in form.” Resist it — this is the day the gains from Day 4 actually land. Drop out of the mountains and onto the flat, quiet inland plain, Es Pla, where the roads roll gently through almond groves and sleepy villages with almost no climbing. Keep it firmly in zone 1, spin a high cadence, stop for a long lunch. The Randa and Es Pla route gives you the flatter inland template — and if your legs genuinely feel good, the standalone climb of Randa is right there as an optional dessert. But the smart move is to do nothing hard. A real recovery day is what separates a training week from a wrecking week.
Day 6 — Coll de Sóller and the southern Tramuntana
Effort: moderate–hard, ~3.5–5 hours. Refreshed, you go back to the mountains for a second hard day — but a different flavour from the queen stage. Head for Coll de Sóller, the old hairpinned pass above the town of Sóller, for a rhythm climb full of switchbacks and the kind of steady gradient you can actually settle into. Pair it with a loop through the orange-grove valley and a café stop in Sóller’s pretty square before the ride home. This is your chance to ride strong on fresh legs and enjoy a corner of the range you haven’t seen yet. Stitch it together with the route planner to suit your base and how far you want to go.
Day 7 — Easy loop and travel
Effort: very easy, ~1–2 hours or off. Don’t try to win the camp on the last day. If your flight is late, roll a short, flat bay loop to flush the legs — a gentle reprise of Day 1, with a coffee and a view. If you’re travelling early, just pack up clean. You’ve done a complete week: a build, a queen stage, a real recovery day and a second hard block. Coming home a little hungry for more is exactly how it should feel.
How to adapt this week
This itinerary is a skeleton, not a prescription. Bend it to fit:
- By ability. Newer or fewer-miles riders should treat Day 4 as the optional crux — ride to Lluc and back instead, skip the Sa Calobra re-climb, and keep more days flat on Es Pla. Stronger riders can extend any day with extra loops and turn Day 6 into a second big mountain effort. Browse all curated routes to lengthen or shorten each day.
- By weather. The order is flexible; the shape isn’t. If the high Tramuntana is cold, wet or windy on your planned queen-stage day, swap it with the flat Es Pla recovery day and chase the big mountains when the forecast clears. Always keep your hardest day for the best weather window. The best time to cycle Mallorca guide explains the seasonal patterns.
- For e-bikes. An e-road or e-MTB flattens the maths entirely — Formentor, Femenia and even the climb back out of Sa Calobra become accessible to almost anyone, and you can compress the build days. Watch your battery on the long mountain days and plan a charge or refill stop; the assist evaporates fast on a relentless climb like Puig Major.
- For logistics. If you’re flying in without a bike, sort the rental before you arrive via the bike rentals hub, stay somewhere with secure storage and an early breakfast from the cycling-friendly hotels list, and use the route planner to turn each day above into a GPS file for your computer.
Follow it loosely, protect the recovery day, and you’ll come home faster instead of just tired.
FAQ
Is one week enough to ride Mallorca’s best climbs?
Comfortably. A northern base puts Cap de Formentor, Coll de Femenia, Puig Major, Sa Calobra and Coll de Sóller all within single-day reach, and this itinerary hits every one of them across seven days while still leaving a true recovery day in the middle. You won’t ride everything on the island, but you’ll ride the legendary stuff.
Do I need to be very fit to follow this itinerary?
No — but you should be comfortable riding three to four hours back-to-back over several days. The climbs here are long rather than savagely steep, so low gearing matters more than raw power. If you’re newer, treat the Day 4 queen stage as optional, keep more days on the flat Es Pla, and you’ll still have a brilliant week. The cycling in Pollença guide has gentler local options.
When in the year should I do this week?
Spring — roughly late February through April — is the classic window: mild temperatures, quiet roads and reliably open mountain passes by April. Autumn is a good, quieter alternative. Avoid high summer for the big mountain days unless you start at dawn. See the best time to cycle Mallorca guide for the full breakdown.
Can I do this itinerary from a base other than the north?
Yes, with reordering. From a Palma or central base, Coll de Sóller and the Es Pla rides come naturally close, while Formentor and Sa Calobra become longer point-to-point days you might shorten or drive partway for. The week’s shape — build, queen stage, recovery, second block — travels fine; the route planner helps you rebuild each day around a different start point.
What if I want to ride harder — can I add a day?
Easily. Extend the recovery day with the Randa climb, turn Day 6 into a second high-mountain effort, or tack a longer endurance loop onto Day 2 or 3. The structure here is the conservative, sustainable version; stronger riders can add volume without changing the queen-stage-plus-recovery rhythm that keeps the week productive. The training camp guide covers how to scale a block up safely.