TransPortugal Day 0

After getting to bed at 1:45, I got up at 7 to a window full of blazing sun, clear blue sky and Portugese birds - basically mother nature's alarm clock on full blast.  Usually I'd think that was pretty cool, but this is my second day of less sleep than I'd prefer, so I'm hoping tonight I can get a full rest in tonight or later in the day.

So far Portugal feels much like last time - between the climate and the people, this place just feels so welcoming.  It's warm, hospitable, relaxed, and neat and tidy.   Other than frying my mind during the days, this looks like it'll be very refreshing on the mind.

My room mate is Oliver, an Australian who's been working real estate private equity in China for nearly a decade and is fluent in Cantonese.  Went to MBA school at IESE in Barcelona.  With the global slowing and desire to branch out, he's chilling a bit more these days... but this is his first ever bike race.  We'll see how that turns out.  He's asking a lot of questions and I hope he can complete the week, which is his goal.

The bike was together by 9am in what feels to me like fairly oppressive heat.  Only problem is my seat collar broke, but I had an extra on this bike for two years as I had thought for that long that it was near failure.  I think with the travel legs, less sleep than usual, and heat, that my better days might be later in the week, but we'll see.  I can see tomorrow being limited in pace by heat more than legs - I think they're saying in the 30-35 range, which isn't that bad, but it's also the first time I've felt those temps this year.  The Portugese people I was driving with said it was too hot these days...  My lower back is sore, but probably not in a very bad way, it's just that for 2 days I haven't had extensive lie down combined with way too much sitting in vehicles.

The hotel is very nice, I think we're in 4 star and apparently one 5 star for the week.  Somehow breakfast, bike building, race meeting, and GPS practice has taken most of the day, but I have to admit I nodded off for 90 mins of napping in the hot morning sun that approximated 3:30-5am sleep at home.

I think this race has some serious riders (the Belgians and a few of the Portugese from what I can tell) and some who aren't prepared.  My main lack of preparation is with the GPS, and Antonio stressed that everyone will wish they spent more time with one ahead of time somewhere during the race.  But the types of questions being asked are kind of surprising.

I think Antonio is a hardcore rider himself (evidenced by his head being distinctly tanned just like his helmet vents), and the setup makes a lot of sense if you can ride on your own for 6 hours.  This is like randonneuring fast, or our spring cyclocross adventure/hammer rides.  Stop in towns if you need to, but other than that it's long self supported rides everyday.  Water "availability" is marked on the map - towns with fountains or cafes.  Our race pack carries a 2 laminated business cards.  One has emergency numbers and stage stats.  The other has Portugese-English translations, ominously including running bulls (gado bravado), bus (autocarro), and chemists (farmacia).  I hope to stick to the basics like water (agua) and beef steak sandwich (prego).

I hadn't realized there were random TT sections in the course for bonus time racing.  I'm sure they'll be late in the day and hard.  Some of them are secret, some are marked.  Message: always ride hard.  This Antonio guy has a few things figured out... plus with the handicap system, his sign off for the speech was "every one of you can be on the podium".

Louize is an awesome translator, she's a Scottish marine biologist and does this too, after having lived in Portugal for years.  She's also a bike rider bike rider too, which helps conceptual translation in addition to just verbal translation... and she's just funny.  The staff are all friendly.

I had lunch with Ryan and Christoper, two pilots from Trinidad who know Cory Wallace from TransMexicana.  They're doing TransAndes next spring and just take turns picking different adventures.  When the going gets tough, they said "rememba to take 'er eeaasy mon".  But they also say Trinidad is all stress (I'm not sure I believe this judging by their personalities) and that Tobago is waaay chilled, totally different, "like chalk and cheese, mon".

At 5pm the GPS brief was done so I ride about 10k of the course out and back.  Bike feels great, I'm riding UST tires, and at standard pressures the feel so different here when it's 32C - nice and supple.  Fork oil seems to move so freely.  The course passes through a little town about 6km away - stone arch bridges, donkeys eating grass, goats dogs and cats lying around.  Totally pleasant, and it feels like going back in time.

The first climb looks steep on the scale, but isn't too bad.  It's doubletrack, and what I noticed most is my contacts and mouth were dry - I think I'm going to evaporate pretty quickly tomorrow. 
Dinner is pretty good - sphaghetti, pig, and chestnuts, with wine and iced tea, plus sponge cake and fruit.  I hope to get a good nights sleep.