Well, it’s time to make things ‘Facebook Official’, minus, actually updating my Facebook page. As some of you have started to figure out, we’ve begun the process of relocating to a new adventure and a new country. After 6 years in the Netherlands, we’ll soon be calling Mallorca (a Spanish island), home. Though, I suppose technically, I’m already calling it home.
Last month, in between a million different product launches, we moved the family down here, and then over the remainder of the fall, I’ll be working to get the sprawling Amsterdam DC Rainmaker Cave packed up and relocated to Mallorca as well.
As we noted last year, the owner of our Amsterdam office space wishes to tear down the building and build high-rise apartments. As such, our lease ends in December, though, at the last minute, they always keep offering slight extensions as their construction timetable gets delayed. Either way, that process started to get us thinking about new potential adventures for our family, and a more sunny locale quickly bubbled to the surface as a key requirement.
Certainly, we’ve absolutely loved the Netherlands (minus the weather) and its people, as we’ve raised our three daughters there (all very much native Dutch speakers). The bike infrastructure of the Netherlands continues to be unbeatable, but, at the same time, a place like Mallorca does offer more year-round testing ground opportunities for me that don’t require me to travel as much. Notably including mountains for hiking, road riding, mountain biking, gravel riding, and year-round (enjoyable) openwater swimming. I’ve been coming to Mallorca for probably a decade now to do all those things, and thus I’m pretty familiar with the island. After considering lots of places in Europe and well beyond, we ultimately decided it’s the perfect blend of both very outdoorsy, but also still easily accessible to the rest of Europe (and even seasonal non-stop flights to New York).
Thus, back in September, we moved into our new home in the southwestern edges of Mallorca, and the kids started school (and, of course, already learning to speak both Spanish and Catalan). We’re strong believers that our kids will only really feel like they fit in long-term with all their friend groups if they speak the local languages natively. That was definitely true in the Netherlands, and since we expect this to be a (likely very) long-term stay, the same here as well.
As far as DC Rainmaker goes, we’ve almost got the contract signed/finalized for a new DCR Cave location in Mallorca. It’s in an awesome area a few blocks from stunning beaches with openwater swimming, directly on a popular road-riding route, and easy access to gravel routes too. It’s gonna be awesome. Thus, after the upcoming Amsterdam DCR Winter Open House 2024 in late November, we’ll move everything down to Mallorca by the end of the year. Typically speaking, the December timeframe is the quietest time of year for me product-wise, hence, best to deal with the ginormous task of packing, unpacking, and building out a new space.
Now, since we’ve moved here, we’ve been making the most of everything it has to offer, from a sports standpoint. Directly out our front door is awesome gravel riding, and trail running, plus openwater swims a 2-minute pedal away. And likewise, I went out on a 50KM trail run/hike a few weeks ago as well. Plus of course the road riding that the island is so famous for cycling-wise.
For daily adventures, I brought our Urban Arrow cargo bike from Amsterdam, and I’ve been attempting to make it work for school and town/activity runs. It’s a bit tricky in that our bike is a bit older now, and also one of the less powerful models (since there were no hills in Amsterdam when we bought it). Whereas here, the route home from school includes some 13-15% gradients, plus the bike loaded with three kids (+ me) simply, we can’t make it up. So, they have to get out and run about 30-50 meters for the steepest sections at the end, before they can load back up the clown-car-like situation that it is, and continue on.
Still, the kids absolutely love riding to/from school in it, and we get a gazillion looks from everyone else while using it. Hopefully I can find a solution that works long-term and doesn’t require them to evacuate ship each time. On the bright side, sans-kids, I got the bike up to some crazy 55KPH speeds on one of the descents! Coming from its Dutch life, this poor thing never knew it could go so fast!
That’s all I’ve got for now, and definitely make sure if you want to check out the DCR Cave in Amsterdam before it gets torn down, sign-up for the Open House – spots are going fast! But don’t worry, just as we did in Paris before Amsterdam, we’ll continue doing DCR Cave Open Houses in Mallorca. Just gotta get the thing built out first!
Thanks for following along and reading, and have a great weekend!
(Oh, and PS, we post a ton of daily sport/life/behind-the-scenes photos to our Instagram stories, both mine and my wife – enjoy!)
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Great place to live! Congratulations…we will miss you ;-)
Bienvenido a España! ;-)
Congratulations. How will be testing in the summer?
Mallorca is a nice place to live and ride the whole year. Bienvenido a España!
Did a week’s hiking there earlier this year. It’s the perfect place for you. Enjoy!
Curious if the urban arrow could be upgraded / modded to handle the hills. Post the details of the model you have and let the audience brainstorm :D
upgrade the rider not the bike :)
Haha, it’s actualy not the rider that’s the problem. The problem is belt slippge beyond the torque. So basically, it eventually just starts slipping. I retuned the belt, but some problem.
:D
Buy this fleet for the family to commute: link to velomobileworld.com
Each member can choose and ride one and you will save the 6th for occasions when the girls demolish their own vehicle.
Welcome to Spain!
It’s really great to have people like you coming to our country. I really appreciate the spanish and specially catalan language learning for your kids.
Congratulations! Absolutely love this for all of you!
Congratulations and sad to see you leave the Netherlands. On the other hand, it does mean that the next DCR Open House will be in a much more pleasant weather :-)
I assume it will also benefit The Girl, as there’s Challenge Mallorca, Ironman 70.3 Mallorca and T100 Ibiza to conquer!
I’m legitimately jealous!
Congratulations! I was wondering how you were able to get such a long holiday with “The Girl”.
Good choice never knew what made you move to Amsterdam ;-)
Should get a Riese&Muller Load 4 75 as a replacement. You can get Rohloff gears on that thing and they can go very low. Also available in a 45km/h version. Really love that bike.
Congrats on the move!
Hope the whole family settles in a good way. Always some challenge moving with kids. Good luck with that!
In hilly Norway, many are using the Riese & Muller bikes.I had a great trip with 2 kids in a steep ride this summer and it was great. Engine had no problem in any of the 10% I’m sure you will find a bike that suits your needs :)
Wow. Nice move. I’ve never there, but I’m getting a little bit of island fever thinking about it. I was working on The Big Island in Hawaii for a while and def felt it there, and that’s 3x the area of Mallorca. Of course most of the area on Hawaii is taken up by two huge mountains…and lava flows.
Welcome to Spain Ray, I wish you and your family the best in this new chapter.
Best whishes from northern Spain
Congratulations to you and your family! It sounds like an amazing relocation and I look forward to reading and watching all your new adventures as you continue to provide one of the best, if not the best, reviews on all things tech sporty wise.
I’m sure the Christmas tree run on the cargo bike will look completely different now as will the gauntlet for drones.
Wishing you and your family all the best,
Paul
I’m amazed that Mallorca won over relocating to sunny England! :)
Hope the move goes smoothly, and you all settle in well.
Congrats on the move. Did a couple of cycling training camps there many moons ago. Fantastic cycling and great culture. …away from the party side of the island.
Bit of weather whiplash though.
Congrats, and best of luck to the whole family.
It sounds like a fascinating move!
Of course, private things are to remain private, but I guess other people like me enjoy reading about your moves. It’s a dream for many of us.
So, please keep sharing.
All the best
Congrats Ray! I was planning my second Mallorca cycling trip, with Trek Travel, for late October/early November 2025. I might need to move it to late November, so that I can attend the first DCR Cave Winter party in Mallorca.
BTW, I have a suspicion that come early 2026 there will be year-round flights between PMI and EWR. I know that for next year, (June – Sept) they are planning on up the schedule to 4x a week.
The adventure continues! Sounds like a great place to live.
I found that moves resulted in decluttering. Some decluttering when packing. Most decluttering when unpacking and I thought, ‘why am I saving this?’.
Even if it is just living vicariously through your adventures it’s amazing to see you raise a family without borders and limits on what is possible. Congrats on doing it very right!
Wow, congratulations! I really love Mallorca for doing sports and I would love to live and work there too.I look forward to your future tests from there.
Congrats on the move!
And I wondered how you got your Urban Arrow to the Island. And why you didn’t answer that question, which you normally did the same unholy hours mid at night like I wrote them.
All the best!
Visited you in Paris, had a cake on your tables outside… did an open house in Amsterdam… so now I know where I need to plan my next trip to 😂
Congrats! Very excited for all of you!
What kind of visa did you get? Was it hard?
That is so cool.
Very happy for you and the entire family…. already looking forward to a DCR run in the (warm) sunshine!
We also need the DC Rainmaker selected top 10 Mallorca road bike & gravel rides, Swim locations, hikes, swim etc
I’m sure Strava’s new features will make it easy to share the list ;-)
All the best to you and your family Ray
Not for me (no seasons, no snow), but sounds perfect for you. No longer will a highway overpass be the highest peak in your area!
Mallorca does have seasons and snow, people forget how cold it can get there
Congrats, especially to the three Peanuts. Their choice of parents continues to pay dividends.
Great story about the uphills and downhills of a cargo bike’s life. As a northern Englander living in the Lakes, Mallorca is a go-to place for sun, cycling, scenery and the freshly pressed orange juice shed on the road to Sa Calobra. Hope you all have a great time – not remotely jealous at all :)
Have fun! At least the Peanuts can continue their sailimg adventure ;)
Thank you for respecting our language, Catalan. I wish everyone who comes to live on our island had this mentality because of our culture. hugely grateful
Awesome! We loved to visit Amsterdam but looking VERY forward to an open house in Mallorca. When I was in the Navy it was my favorite port visit and I’d love to get back there!!! Wishing you all the best on a simple cave move! I bet your open house guests will get lots of prizes of things you don’t want to move, lol. I almost pulled the trigger to come again this year, but we have been eyeing early retirement and he budget just didn’t cover it this year. But now I should be able to sell the 1st Mallorca open house ;-)
You keep making moves that make sense.
I travelled the world and settled on Switzerland for family life.
With South Tirol (italy) and Mallorca as the only possible next steps.
Enjoy
(The girls might need to learn German as well.. since that is the third language there)
I for one am looking forward to using a DCR Open House as an excuse for making a trip to Mallorca (or is it the other way around because I wasn’t going to be able to convince my non-endurance athlete wife to do that for Amsterdam 🤔)
I’ll miss the cargo bike criterium reports though.
Congrats! Mallorca is a wonderful place. I’ve been going there the past ten years or so to ride and hike. There’s a fabulous cycling community there.
Awesome 👏
Can’t wait for the 2025 Open House 😃
Enjoy!