Riding in the path of Totality.
The Alignment Ride in Mallorca saw Café du Cycliste join forces with other cycling brands to ride with almost a hundred people to view the total eclipse.
For Café du Cycliste, the Alignment Ride was the culmination of a summer season celebrating the wonders of the cosmos with our Star Chasing collection. And Gabriel, our retail manager, accompanied by Café ambassador Josh Reid, have cycled to Mallorca from our Munich store, passing by our shops in Paris, Bédoin and Nice to be there – riding thousands of kilometres for an unmissable 96 seconds of darkness.
We rolled out of the store in Palma in the afternoon, flanked with almost a hundred riders, for 50 kilometres of rolling roads to Torre del Verger, on the coastal side of the Tramuntana mountains between Banyalbufar, and Estellencs. For kilometre after kilometre, hundreds of people lined the road.
Excitement was rife as the eclipse started, with boats in the sea, helicopters zooming across the skyline and houses full of people wearing eclipse glasses and drinking in anticipation.
However, as soon as the sun was completely covered everyone fell silent as if something primal within themselves had been touched – some slightly frightened and others fascinated, all standing on the side of a road watching a moment larger then themselves. For those 96 seconds it was as if time had stopped.
Once the sun re-emerged, it started sinking into the sea and was still a crescent as it disappeared over the horizon. We all hustled onto our bikes as cars, buses and walkers made their return pilgrimage towards Palma, climbing off the coast to return to the plaza so we could share some drinks and our thoughts and feelings about what we just had the privilege of witnessing.
