Is Alcúdia good for cycling with children?

It is the best area on Mallorca for it. The land behind the bay is dead flat reclaimed marsh, there are separated cycle lanes along the main road and long stretches of promenade, and the distances between the resorts are short. The one real hazard is the roundabouts, where the lane crossings need an adult in front and an adult behind.

What should we hire for a four-year-old?

A trailer or a child seat, depending on the child and the adult. A trailer is more comfortable, carries two children plus the beach bag, and is easier to forget about while riding; a seat is more sociable and easier to park. Both should be booked ahead, because shops carry far fewer of them than they carry bikes.

Can we cycle into s’Albufera?

Yes, on the main tracks, and it is the best short ride in the area: flat, car-free and full of birds. Access to the park is controlled and visitors are normally asked to collect a free permit at the reception building near the entrance, so allow for that stop and check the current arrangements and opening hours before you set out.

How far can we realistically ride in a day?

With children on their own bikes, plan on fifteen to twenty kilometres including a long stop, and choose a route where you can turn back at any point. The flat helps enormously but the wind across the bay does not, and a headwind on the return leg is what turns a good morning into a bad one.

A month or so ahead for July and August, which is peak family season here. The trailers, tag-alongs and child seats run out long before the adult bikes do, and unlike the road fleet they cannot simply be swapped for a different size.

Hiring bikes for a family week in Alcúdia

Alcúdia is the one corner of Mallorca built for riding with children: flat, separated from traffic for kilometres, and short on hills. What to hire for a family week, which routes work with a six-year-old on the back, how the wetland park changes the day, and why the family fleet peaks in the month the road bikes sit idle.

The land behind the bay of Alcúdia is reclaimed marsh, which is a dull fact with an excellent consequence: it is completely flat for about ten kilometres in every direction that matters. On an island whose reputation is built on mountain passes, this corner is where you can put a six-year-old on a bike and not think about gradients at all.

That is why the northern resorts have a rental trade of a completely different shape from the one in Palma or Port de Pollença. Here the fleet is hybrids, trailers, tag-alongs and children’s bikes with two sizes of wheel, and the busy season is the school holidays.

What to hire, and in what order to ask for it

The bikes are the easy part. Every shop in the resort has adult hybrids with a basket and a bell, and they are all much the same. The things that run out are:

Trailers. One or two children, a roof, and space for towels. The most useful object in a family hire and the one with the smallest fleet.
Tag-alongs. A half-bike that bolts to an adult seatpost, for the child who can pedal but cannot yet be trusted at a junction.
Child seats. Rear-mounted mostly; front seats exist but are rarer.
Children’s bikes in the middle sizes. The 20-inch and 24-inch wheels go first, because that is the age band that mostly comes here.

Book those specifically and by name, and give the shop the children’s heights. An adult bike can be adjusted to fit; a child’s bike in the wrong wheel size cannot, and swapping it means somebody driving back to the shop on day two.

A row of small scooters in a rental rack on a narrow street in Alcúdia old town, helmets hanging on the mirrors and a shuttered shopfront behind. — Hire racks fill the old town streets, and the same operators often rent bikes, scooters and beach kit from one counter. Ask which they actually maintain.

Four rides that work

The bay promenade. From Port d’Alcúdia south along the front towards Platja de Muro and Can Picafort, mostly on promenade and separated path. Flat, busy with pedestrians in the middle of the day, ideal at nine in the morning.
The old town. Two kilometres inland to the walled town of Alcúdia, which you can ride around the outside of and walk into. Market days fill it; the walls are worth the trip regardless.
S’Albufera. The wetland park behind the bay, entered from the road between Port d’Alcúdia and Can Picafort. Flat gravel tracks, no cars, hides and birds. Access is controlled and normally needs a free permit collected at the reception building, so build that stop into the plan.
Towards Es Mal Pas and the Victòria road. The one direction with a hill in it, heading north-east out of Alcúdia. Fine for teenagers, wrong for a trailer, and part of it runs into restricted military ground, so check the signs and turn where they tell you.

Beyond those, the road to Cap de Formentor starts about fifteen kilometres away and is emphatically not a family ride. It is a cliff road with a hard climb at the start, and the two things do not belong in the same holiday plan.

The roundabouts are the actual risk

The cycle lane along the main road behind the bay is separated and well used, and it is genuinely good infrastructure by Mediterranean resort standards. Where it falls over is at the roundabouts, where the lane crosses side roads and the priority is not obvious to a driver who arrived yesterday from a country with different conventions.

The habit that works: an adult leads, an adult sweeps, children ride between, and everybody stops at every crossing whether or not it looks necessary. It costs three minutes over a morning and removes the only genuine danger of the week.

The second habit: ride out into the wind and back with it. The sea breeze on this bay builds through the day from the north-east, and a tired child riding into it at four in the afternoon is a specific kind of misery.

The inside of a bike rental workshop with bikes in a wheel rack, a repair stand and a bench of tools and small parts. — Family hire is delivered, so the shop is somewhere you may never visit. That makes the handover inspection at your door the only inspection you get.

The season here runs the other way

The rest of this island’s cycling economy peaks in February and March, when the road fleets are booked out and the mountain roads are full. In Alcúdia the opposite is true. The family fleet does its business from June to September, and in the school holidays a shop that has road bikes gathering dust in the back will have nothing at all in a 20-inch wheel.

So the booking advice inverts too. For a family week in August, book bikes about a month out and the trailers as early as you can. In April you can walk in on the morning and take whatever you like, and the water is cold but the riding is better.

The thing families get wrong

Hiring for the whole week when you will ride on three days. Daily rates in the resorts are low, weekly rates are lower still per day, and the maths usually favours the week — but only if the bikes have somewhere secure to live. Six bikes chained to a railing outside an apartment block for seven nights is a different proposition from six bikes in a locked store.

Ask about storage before you decide the duration. If there is nowhere, hire for the specific days, have them delivered in the morning and collected in the evening, and accept the slightly higher rate for not spending the holiday worrying about a bike rack. It is one of the few rental decisions here where the cheaper option is genuinely the worse one.