Oh Boy!

The problem with the cyclists is that they don’t contribute anything to the local bars and restaurants.

As a couple of hotels in Playa de Muro prepare to open their doors to the cycling season’s lycra intake, so the above complaint will be heard above the sounds of car horns urging the pelatons off the road. These cyclists, all hale and hearty, watered and fed only on sports drinks and bananas, eschewing the calorific and arterial bombardment of beer and beef, spending nary a euro at the local hostelry. There may well be some who are tucked up by nine o’clock, sending themselves off to sleep with a study of the following day’s hundreds of kilometre route map, but there are plenty who are not.

A lot of the cyclists are German. Germany was built on beer and meat, as were most of the cyclists. It is wrong to suggest that they do not frequent the bars and restaurants and are not capable of demolishing the side of a cow and vacuuming up a barrel of lager. Or rather, it may be a correct impression if you don’t know how to attract them.

There are few places open in Playa de Muro during the late winter. But one restaurant that will be opening in February is Boy. Notwithstanding its potentially misunderstood name, Boy (the name was adopted as a translation of “chico”) has made itself a restaurant of choice for the cyclist. It helps that Juan Antonio himself is a keen user of two wheels, but that’s just a part of the story. The restaurant has forged a strong relationship not only with the springtime cycling fraternity but also with Max Huerzler who organises much of the cycling tourism.

Where others might ignore or moan about the value of this early tourism, Boy has turned it into an advantage. I think it’s known as running a business. And they have extended their own business by a couple of months by getting close to the cyclist market.

So when others are complaining, take a look at the terrace at Restaurant Boy on a sunny February late afternoon or early evening. All that lycra may not be to everyone’s taste, but all that lycra does indeed go to restaurants and does indeed spend money.


QUIZ
Yesterday – Grange Hill. Today’s title – one for those with long memories, this was a television pop show produced by whom?

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