An early alarm woke us at 6am for a DIY breakfast made from the welcome basket that was at our villa upon our arrival.
Bikes loaded and we were off by 8am. The weather was already warm, 21 degrees.
We nipped back into the town and filled up the bikes then hit the road for the start of Day 2.
It wasn't long before we hit the first trail of the day, a lovely ride up over a large hill with spectator views down over the River Douro. We descended off the hill and tracked alongside the river then it was up, up, up again and a long trail over the top of another hill/ mountain again with fantastic views.
This type of trail formed much of today's riding, up high with views for miles and miles, but we also had some lower lever trails most of them dusty but some with shallow sand and river crossings too which added something different to the riding.
There was a particularly superb loop-section through what has been named 'Touratech valley', an amazing valley with straight cut blocks forming the valley walls both above us and below down to the river below.
We stopped in the little village of Poiares for a snack and a drink and the bar lady kindly added ice to our drinks baldders which was superb and kept the drink cold for hours.
As we exited the trail back onto the road which started to descend the side of the mountain we saw huge Griffin vulchers level with us circling, catching what thermals they could in the mid-morning heat. There was a fair few of them but as we rode further along the road we obviously scared a huge flock of them that were sat on the rocks. It was an amazing sight as they all took to the air, and there were loads of them. Wow. What a sight.
Approx half way into the route the landscape and scenery changed to much more lush greenery and forests which the route took us through. The smells of the pine foests was nice to smell (......despite being mixed with dust and the dust in the forestry was probably the worst dust of all being so fine and with no breeze in the trees to clear the air the dust hung in the air making navigation a challenge)
At about mid point of the ride we had our first mishap, a puncture. A nail - of all things, right on the top of a mountain - in Taffy's rear. We moved a short distance down the trail to find shade then set about fixing it, which was actually an easy fix cos given he had tyre slime in his tubes we opted to whack air back into the tyre hoping the slime would do it's job and save us taking the wheel and the tyre off and replacing the tube. At 33psi and some rotations of the tyre to spead the slime inside the tube it seemed to have fixed the leak so we cracked on.
We checked the pressure again later and it had dropped to 15psi so not fully fixed but after a short stop in the shade of the woods - where we saw some weird bugs - we reinflated back to 30psi and headed for the end of the days trail which wasn't that far.
Turning into the last trail of the day it headed up a mountain. Jules was leading the way and it wasn't long before we could hear him on the comms f'ing and jeff'ing about the condition and severity of the trail. I was 4th out of the 6 of us and as I came round the corner I saw Taff struggling on a very rocky section with the rest of the bikes queued in nervous anticipation of what lay ahead, which were deep gulleys zig-zagging the trail (from water errosion) filled with very large, loose boulders, some of them aligned presenting a large step.
I got off and started walking to Taff to give him a hand but then he got himself away. I stayed in place off my bike, and hailed the next rider through giving them a bit of a manual boost where needed. Same again for Kirky then when I turned back to hail Marc (the last rider) to "Go" I saw his bike was on the floor, so I walked back down to help him pick it up. I could tell he wasn't too confident at tackling this obstacle so I rode the bike up for him past the knarly bit. I then had to walk back down AGAIN to ride my bike up! It was hot, 36 degrees, and hard work!
Around the next corner was a short straight section approx 80m long that again was rather treacherous with lots of big, lose rocks. I cleared this then waited for Marc ..... and waitied and waited and waited. He also couldn't hear me on the comms as he'd taken his helmet off to walk up to his bike where I left it for him. So, I walked back down the steep track to see where he was and just as I got to the bottom he came around the corner, paused, stalled then dropped the bike again. We lifted it up then I told him he was going to have to ride it up here cos that was far easier than walking up it!! He set off and thankfully made it, then I walked back up the 80m incline to my bike. I was puffing I can tell you!!!
A few more switchbacks later and we were all up at the top.
We continued to the routes planned end at the lake at Vale du Rossin but having not being able to secure accommodation here for the night we pressed on on the road to Manteigas. Most of us were running on a flashing low fuel warning at this point and the road down the side of the valley into Manteigas was a very lomg and winding one ..... it honestly seemed we would ever get there. Down and down and down we went but the odd sneak peak through the trees still seemed as if the town was still waaaay down in the valley.
We eventually made it down and found a fuel station and all filled up in readiness for tomorrow.
Across the road was a pizzeria so a snap descion was made that Pizza was for dinner so we parked the bikes and sat at a table amd ordered some much needed, and deserved beers before making our meal choices. The pizza was delicious and exactly what we needed after today's ride.
The final challenge for the day was to find our accommodation that had been booked earlier my Kirky. Jules had the name of the hotel so he spelt it out to me as I typed it into Google maps and as he was spelling it and saying it I couldn't help think it sounded familiar and as Google found it and I hit 'directions' the map zoomed out and took me back to where we'd set off from that morning in Torre De Moncorvo ....... Yup, Kirky had booked THAT accommodation for our nights stay. DOH! He was distraught at how this could have happened but we all thought it was hilarious - and certainly a tale he won't live down for a long time I reckon!
We ordered another beers and did a freah search for some local digs and quickly found an option to booked it then commuted the very short distance to the hotel which was wonderful.
Another day of memorable moments some might want to forget, the stuff of great adventure tales that grow taller with time
The weird 6 cm bugs with red warning stripes are oil beetles that exude caustic oil fron their knees when pissed off
Still with the big grin
