Day one (for me and DA; day three or something for everybody else) and there’s a relentless easterly wind blowing as we set off in the general direction of the day’s destination, the monastery at Sant Salvador. It sits at the top of what is, for me, the most enjoyable climb on the island: 5km or thereabouts of ascent at some 6.7percent grade, the whole lot piled like spagetti into short straights with ridiculously tight hairpins.

To get there, we spent a couple of hours wending this way and that on tiny roads with, for the most part, a crosswind worthy of Gent-Wevelgem for company. 

The first part of the Sant Salvador climb is a dead straight ramp several hundred metres long. On it DA launched a probing big-ring attack that quickly gapped the rest of us. A reaction by several others forced my hand and a good old ding-dong followed with the lead changing hands at least twice before Shiny Boy eventually prevailed, earning himself the right to buy tonight’s first round of beers. Good lad.