The big island of the Balearic Islands, Mallorcahas everything to continue to be the great epicenter of world cycling. In its favor plays the climate, mild and pleasant most of the year and the terrain, in which there is everything from good climbs to large plains and stretches along the sea, in a cycling culture that permeates the whole island.
"We are at the epicenter of the Mediterranean diet," says Miquel Àngel Barrios, head of marketing and brand expansion at Arabay Coffee Roasters. "We have a very complete diet, made up of healthy fats, especially omega 3 from olive oil and nuts, but also a wide variety of vegetables and protein from crustaceans, mollusks, meat and fish. In just a hundred kilometers, we have everything".
A zero-kilometer offer that can be tasted in restaurants and in the island's huge hotel plant: "We have a wide range of products and services.The Balearic Islands are the world's leading cycling tourism destination.The Balearics are the world's leading cycling destination, with many cyclist-focused hotels that do not close in the low season," continues Miquel Àngel.
Mallorca's cycling gene
To all this we can add a long history full of legends of the sport: from the Timoner brothers to the current Lluis Mas y Enric Masboth in the Movistardirect witnesses of the previous generation, the one formed by Vicenç Reynès, Toni Colom, Joan Horrach, Joan Horrach and the great Joan Llaneras, the pistard with most Olympic medals and one of the best Spanish athletes in the most important event in world sport.
A story that, however, is not accompanied by a cycling team on the horizon. We had been a decade without reference teams," says Toni Vallcaneras, president of the Arabay Cycling Friendly Team and CEO of Cafés Bay - Illes Balears. Movistar Team - is the last piece of a story with which we have to continue. Mallorca is still a cradle of great pros who eventually had to emigrate. Here there are many local clubs with great activity in the area". We could say that the youngsters did not have an "illenc" reference team.
The steps of Arabay-Cicling Friendly
From these embers of history comes the Arabay-Cycling Friendly, a project that is born with such a name for 2022, but that puts roots much further back, when Toni Vallcaneras founded the Sporty + club in Lloret de Vistalegre, in the heart of the island of Mallorca, in 2007.
Since then the project has done nothing but grow: after three years it was already functioning as an amateur cycling club, with its weekly rides and its social cycling life. At five, Cafés Bay was listed as its main sponsor. In 2016 the club began to compete locally and the following year, Lluís Mas, then at Caja Rural, took an interest in the project, helping to professionalize a structure that would be joined by Mas's own schools, along with those of Vicenç Reynès and Joan Llaneras.
After them, Arabay Coffee Roasters entered as main sponsor and began the design of the current Arabay-Cycling Friendly Team Balears, whose roadmap goes towards 2025 with very marked steps.
“In 2022 we will be a national team that will compete in the Spanish Cup and in the Basque-Navarre calendar, along with U23 stage races. We will have 24 cyclists, not all of them from the Balearic Islands, and a technical staff of 18 people. A very important step this year is the creation of a second structure, based in the Basque Country, with car, van and three technicians, which will give us the option to compete in two places on the same day. To be in 50 races is the goal", says Toni Vallcaneras.
“We will work to make the leap to a national continental team in 2023. -he continues- the following year we want to be continental prowith international presence, opting for some World Tour races such as Volta, Itzulia and San Sebastian and in 2025, we want to have a third structure that will compete for the points to aspire to the World Tour.
With this ambitious plan, we can say that "the social base of 200 children that we have in our schools already has a more or less clear exit".
Kit 2022 Arabay-Cycling Friendly Team Balears
An jersey that speaks about the brand
It is said that the "pica" is one of the four cards of the French deck of cards. Its stylized figure is the basis of the design that the jerseys that the Arabay-Cycling Friendly Team Balears has completed with the Gobik: “The concept comes from a deck of cards and is based on the drop of coffee that falls from the coffee pot holder. We have the colors black and maroon as a base: the black of the coffee color and maroon as the color of the brand".
And for this they have counted on Gobik. "Forgive me for saying it like this, but they are the best at making technical clothing for cyclists. When you talk about Gobik with cyclists, they point to the brand as the epitome of comfort, safety and fashion. It sounds silly, but these are things that cyclists value. All our riders said 'how cool' when they saw themselves in it and added that it's fashion, that they're in fashion, that it's not just about riding.
Coffee is a cyclist's faithful companion
Like almost every good story, it all stems from a crush. Like the one that Toni Vallcaneras, owner of Arabay Coffee Roasters, had when he tried cycling. He, who had always practiced tennis, even being a tennis instructor, gave cycling a try ten years ago, looking for an activity that did not involve a fixed schedule. Since then he hasn't stopped.
"I do it alone or with people, without a fixed schedule. I just started and felt that I was hooked to the core," says Toni, a former European Master 40 runner-up, who is preparing thoroughly for the next Cape Town World Championships. Epic.
With his passion for cycling, Toni has managed to combine two complementary worlds: "Coffee is not only a social drink, how many rides start with a coffee in the middle of the ride? We should also value the power of caffeine as a post-training recovery element.
And the fact is that cycling is a good vehicle for communicating the benefits of coffee. Arabay-Cycling Friendly Team Balears will do so wherever it participates, but will continue to do so in all the events and competitions they attend, serving the riders a good coffee, well made from start to finish, from the harvest to the moment in which the barista goes into action, because if there is an element that combines with all the moments of cycling, that is coffee.
Photos: Arabay Coffee
