Calls for Mallorca 312 cycling event to be cancelled over “abusive” road closures which “violate” locals’ rights to “enter or leave their homes” and turn island into a “theme park”

A dozen groups, ranging from environmental activists to anti-tourism campaigners, have issued a joint statement urging the Council of Mallorca and the Spanish government to cancel this year’s edition of the Mallorca 312 sportive, arguing that the event’s “abusive” road closures violate the “fundamental rights” of locals to leave their homes, while also harming the environment and “intensifying” tourist overcrowding.

First held in 2010, the Mallorca 312 is the Spanish island’s flagship cycling event, with 8,500 cyclists from all over the world signed up to take part in next month’s 15th edition, which sold out in minutes, according to the organisers.

Originally conceived as a full lap of an island that has become a cycling haven in recent decades, the event’s increasing popularity means it is now based primarily in Mallorca’s mountainous north, offering three routes (312km, 225km, and 167km) on completely closed roads through the scenic and challenging Serra de Tramuntana range.

Mallorca cycling (credit: Sportive Breaks)

However, ahead of this year’s event, which will be held on Saturday 26 April, 12 local groups have called on the Council of Mallorca and the Spanish government’s representatives in the Balearic Islands to suspend the Mallorca 312 until a review has been carried out to assess its “public interest”, based on societal and environmental criteria.

The joint statement was issued by a range of residents’ groups, anti-tourism initiatives, including the Alternative for Pollença and the Less Tourism More Life platform, and environmental associations, such as the Youth for Climate Mallorca and Son Bonet Green Lung.

In the statement, the groups criticised the lengthy road closures associated with the sportive, as well as the organising team’s argument that the Mallorca 312’s late-April date helps to “de-seasonalise” tourism on the island, claiming instead that “the reality is that it intensifies the tourist overcrowding that we already suffer in the spring”.

Mallorca 312 (credit: Sportive Breaks)

“Once again, many residents will be seriously affected, with travel restricted for several hours – up to seven in some cases – if these coincide with the race route,” the groups said.

“In addition, as has happened in previous editions, there will be residents who will find themselves faced with the violation of a fundamental right: that of entering or leaving their homes due to the road closures imposed for this event.”

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The groups also claimed that, while the Mallorca 312 enables locals to take part, the event has largely been conceived as a “tourist business”.

“It enriches certain businessmen through the abusive use of common goods, such as roads, created to guarantee the mobility and communication of people, and not because they are appropriate for a private activity with a profit motive,” the groups continued.

The statement accused the Council of Mallorca of allowing the island to be turned into “a theme park that leads us towards collapse” and of “violating the fundamental rights of residents to favour this tourist business”.

The groups argue that, unlike local bike races or other festivals, the Mallorca 312 “does not respond to any social need or general interest. On the contrary, it generates a negative impact on the environment, favours a tourist sector that lives at the expense of the territory and resources, and harms the wellbeing of Mallorca’s residents”.

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The statement concluded by requesting the local authorities to “not authorise the race until a rigorous and strict evaluation of the public interest has been carried out based on social and environmental criteria.

“In addition, this evaluation should guarantee respect for free circulation on foot and by bicycle, access to work, the protection of the health and common wellbeing of residents, above the interests of the tourism business.”

And, if the sportive does indeed go ahead as planned next month, the groups called for a compromise deal that would “avoid the total closure of the roads affected by the race, while allowing residents to travel on foot or by bicycle”, and “minimise the time the roads are closed and ensure that, under no circumstances, it exceeds two consecutive hours”.

"Anti-tourist" protest in Mallorca (credit: Twitter: @marcmasmiquel)

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Mallorca’s reputation as a hotspot for cycling tourism has come under fire from angry locals.

Last July, we reported that 10,000 people attended an anti-tourism protest in the island’s capital of Palma, calling for action against a sector that brings hundreds of millions of euros to the local economy, but which residents claim is driving up house and rental prices, and raising the cost of living.

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“There will be no more regattas, tomorrow is the last cruise,” the protesters chanted in unison during the demonstration.

“Goodbye rental cars, goodbye rat businesses. Houses will be cheap and we won’t see more cyclists. We will plough the highways, the hotels will be empty and so the world will understand that there are too many tourists.”