By Robbie Broughton

I´ve always had the utmost respect for bike shop mechanics but the staff at Cycling Planet in Alaró, Mallorca demand to be held in even higher esteem than others. Its founder, David Muntaner, is not only a skilled mechanic who will service your bike, fix up your gears and re-spoke your wheels. He also happens to be a World Champion.

David´s fantastic achievement, the pinnacle of a successful professional cycling career, came in 2014 when he won the Madison at the World Championships held in Cali, Colombia, with his fellow Balearic teammate, Albert Torres. “I think getting world champion was the goal I was chasing for all my life, that's the main one,” he tells me as we take shelter from a cold and wet day in January. The interior of Cycling Planet is a cosy and welcoming place to be while we suffer from an uncharacteristically chilly spell over here in Mallorca that has seen snow settled on the high Tramuntana mountains for over a week.

If it’s too cold and wet to go out for a ride, then sitting down in the warmth of the Cycling Planet shop and having a (socially distanced) chat with David as he reminisces on a career that started on the roads, paths and track of Mallorca some 20 plus years ago isn’t a bad alternative.

“I was born here and I spent all my life here. I got into cycling when I was 12 years old, mostly everything: mountain bike and road cycling and then I got slowly into the track side. I was a road professional for a bit but mostly it was the track.”

With a state of the art 8,000 seater velodrome in Palma that held the 2007 World´s there’s something of a tradition of track cycling on the island. Stars like Mark Cavendish have both competed here in Six Day events as well completing training blocks here. There’s also an outdoor velodrome in the small town of Sineu, apparently established by the cycling-mad local mayor and named after a Mallorquin rider, Francesco Alomar, who competed in the 1954 Tour de France but tragically died in an accident the following year.

David´s track career spanned 10 years and included the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2012 Games in London where he was part of the men's pursuit team. “The Olympics is super cool, especially London which was amazing. London was just like crazy. There was a full house everyday and the olympic village was great. You walked out onto the street and everyone was stopping you and talking to you. It was amazing.

**On the track in Palma wearing Cycling Planet kit**

“The London velodrome is one of the best ones, a beautiful exterior design, an incredible atmosphere. Every time you go there to race whether that´s the Olympics, World Cup, Six Days or Revolution or whatever, it´s great with the music pumping and so on. I loved to do the Revolution races every winter. I tried to do one, two or three every season, super cool.”

David’s partnership with his Madison partner, Albert Torres, started back in 2008 and continued until 2015 meaning that by the end of their time together they knew each other extremely well. The Madison event demands a very high level of understanding between two riders as it´s a relay event where you sling your teammate into the race, taking turns to put in big efforts. David explains, “You need to see how he is feeling. It's not much about talking, you need to know without saying anything, to know that he's feeling good... So you need to be super close, training together and racing together all the time.”

**David and Albert Torres show off their World Champion medals**

But having the skill and power to beat competitors on the track and developing a symbiotic relationship with your Madison partner is only part of the picture. To become a World Champion requires the utmost dedication. David says that, “you need to really want it very bad. If you don't want it very much, you won't get there, it's a lot of focus and every day training, you need to do lots of big efforts to get there.” Training was based in Alaró, Mallorca under the watchful eye of “one of the best coaches in the world” the American, Andy Sparks who picked a group of the best cyclists from around the world including USA, Ireland, Korea and Mexico, the competitive elements within the group pushing each individual to achieve their very best.

Nowadays David is still in touch with Torres who, although now races for the Movistar road team and rode in last year’s Giro, is still based in Mallorca. “We trained together just a few days ago. I see him a lot.”

While he still goes out on the road bike every week, often in the company of the many pro and ex-pro riders based on the island, he’s more likely to be found tackling the rough tracks on his mountain bike these days, saying that, “I did road all my life and now it's time to do something different and have fun.” When there's not a pandemic on he competes at a high level and always used to go to Italy in the summer to take part in a series of MTB races. He´s in an excellent location here in Alaró which sits at the bottom of a mountain with a track that leads all the way to a castle at the very top. In two hours he can get in some seriously hard training involving uphill efforts as well as some technical descents and turns on rock, dirt and gravel.

**Servicing his World Champ bike in rainbow stripes**

He fits all this in while managing and working in Cycling Planet with his wife Laura (also a successful road, track and mountain cyclist in her own right). Since they started the business nine years ago it has established itself as one of the regular coffee stops for group rides on the island. ‘Planetarios’ as they have become known are attracted by the great food and drink on offer as well as some striking kit designed by the Cycling Planet team in partnership with Gobik. The style is edgy and bold, almost anarchic and is often modelled by the team in crazy videos and shots on their instagram.

**Celebrity Planetarios pop in for a coffee**

This is also an excellent place to hire a road, gravel or mountain bike if you´re out here on holiday. They supply Cinelli, Felt and Nukeproof. While you´re getting sized up you can admire David´s track bike hanging from the wall which is decked out in World Champion rainbow colours. It's a great shop to browse in with stacks of cycling memorabilia that will inspire you before a ride into the mountains.

My time with David is up - despite the island being in a semi-lockdown at the moment, the shop is still busy with customers coming in to get bikes repaired, buy kit, or simply to enjoy a classic Mallorquin pa amb oli and cortado. He needs to get back to the day job. It's been a real pleasure chatting with him and listening to his story which he’s told with great modesty but also with a fervour you can see burning in his eyes. You can tell he still has a real passion and love of cycling, something that also comes across in his excellent shop. We´ll certainly be back again soon and I recommend any readers who can get out to Mallorca this year that they also pop in to this precious jewel. Hasta luego, David!

David’s favourite rides