TransPortugal Day 7

Portugal: 4. Erik: 3.

Looking at the route profile, today's 133k just looks bloody hard. Guys who've done it before say it's stupidly hard. And we're going in the exact same direction as yesterday - yes that means headwinds.

I knew this race was big, bigger than others I'd done. So I packed well in advance, and got both my bags right up to 50lbs, with any additional space being taken up with food, food and more food. Guess what? My race food supply is dwindling. Today I tried a few creative things. I ran out of high calorie Boost, usually those extra 350 calories fuel me well on a long ride. On the scale of this race they seem like little quarter tank top ups out there somewhere around noon. Instead I brought a bunch of soup, it's a bit like a potato puree. It worked fine. And a sandwich.

First things first - I get my replacement GPS and I let my tire pressure down from Euro bone jarring roadie pressure to something I can work with. It was heavenly today having them right all day.

Right from the start, Joao (by the way, this is soft g sound like second g in garage, with approximatly "oo-ow" or "oo-ou" after - really smooth transfer between the sounds) pinned it like he meant business, and never pulled in behind a draft. We all just held on. Going through windy, hilly fields, pretty soon it was down to about 10 guys. About 20 mins in it downpours, raining sideways in our faces. Did I mention nothing in this race is easy? I can't believe this stuff, seriously. I could care less, I have plenty of chain oil, it's still warm by my standards, and I can ride mud. And I feel totally recovered and like I'm on fire.

About 40km in I set the race on fire, accidentally of course. We got to a fun downhill, and I let go of my brakes. Half way down there was a right turn... I missed it with my replacement GPS and it's special 10 second screen refresh delay... and all the Belgians followed me for 25m before the yelling started. We turned around and saw Luis and Joao made the right turn, and now Luis was pinning it into the wind and sacrificing himself to launch Joao. Sweet move. We turn around and now I'm riding with 7 Belgians who's race I've helped mess up a little. Once we get on track we hit a road... I do one hard pull for a few mins right away in front of the yellow jersey as a "sorry, my bad and I know it" move.

The rest of the Belgians start doing hero pulls till they blow, it's a total shit show. After my pull I'm just redlined hanging onto the back. 15 mins later we catch Luis, and it's only Dries, Thomas, myself and Frans left. We do a long climb, and I end up on Frans' wheel again. He pins it on the flats and I'm on... nice. I think this could actually work out well... until we hit some gravel, he actually hears that I'm behind him, looks and sees me, and doesn't seem to think he needs my company... Ok that's understandable. He turns around, and what I thought was pinned must have been more like half throttle, holy shit. I see how this is going to turn out really fast, so I sit up and eat, waiting for the others to come the 100m back up to us. He holds that pace for a while - we're on a straight dirt road, and is gone like there's no tomorrow.

I ride with three Belgians and Luis for a while, until we get to some rollers where they're determined to shake Luis off. I hang on, it's hard for another 20 mins, but we're in a huge headwind section and they seem satisfied that he's going to me f-d on his own out there now. The last 45 minutes have been like a cross country race.

Half our later we get into a beautiful valley system, pick off a bunch of the earlier starters, and then on the long downhill lose the one Belgian, so it's down to Thomas, Dries and I. I had wanted to duke it out with them all week, and I guess you have to be careful what you wish for. We're at about 80km and I've been riding bloody hard all morning... But we settle in and have fun. The climb hard and descend relatively well, I'm being beaten like a rented mule and am digging deep just to stay in contact (plus my patented I'm tired as f--k manouver: skip the brakes on the way down). Their navigation helps me a lot relative to my super delayed GPS.

Eventually we cross some train tracks and approach a water stop, and Thomas is yelling. His rear derailleur cable is frayed and broken, and he's asking if I can help fix it. Dries and I look at him and say that'll be a tough one by the looks of it. I'm sad that I'll be alone riding for a bit, but happy that I get some recovery time at a pace I choose. Turns out that they couldn't fix it and he decides to ride in with three gears - front cogs - and the rear in the derailleur's relaxed position of the lower cog. We're 40km out and haven't done the biggest two hills - that's not gonna be fun.

I leave, but they catch me again soon. His chain is bouncing around so they stop to take out a few links, so again I'm on my own. I don't see them again till half way up the first huge climb.

The climb is long and steep, nothing else to say. Hard but rideable. I'd see them behind me, but Thomas was running it. That guy is crazy strong. On the better grades Dries would push him a little and he'd stand and pedal in his way too high available gearing.

I crested first and didn't see them for the next 15km of pavement. The climb went on forever, it's like they want to show us all the mountains. It was ridiculous.

Eventually they caught back up... those two are really stong, I actually don't understand why they haven't been riding more aggressively all week, they seem to have the engines. We did the last descent together, sketchy as can be with all the wet rocks from the intermittent showers that pummeled us. Their GPS' are better, but their descending not quite as good, lots of tire locking and skidding. Eventually I just said let's focus on not crashing and we can ride in together, I thought they'd slide out on a corner or something. I'm not sure exactly, but we most likely crossed simultaneously in 7-8-9th or 8-9-10th. I think a lot of people won't finish, as the first 100km just soften everyone up for a serious dose of suffer at the end. Whoever completes this stage in the cutoff time should get an "hard man" shirt. With the sideways rain, high winds and these two ridiculous giant climbs, this stage was like a slaughterhouse. I'm glad I felt good this morning because I needed every ounce of it. Joao won, and my mistake launched the attack. That guy has got some serious power and reserves.

This whole race is downright crazy, and that's a fact. You know how La Ruta says it's the hardest? Total BS. This is like doing two of the 4 day versions of La Ruta back to back and carrying all your food. No exaggeration, that's just straight out how it is. It's completely nuts. I thought I was signing up for a normal race, in this nice friendly beautiful country. But it's like I woke up and found out Cory Wallace's long lost Portugese cousin designed a course that he thought might really push Cory close to the edge for 8 days. I'm seriously thinking about doing the cafe stop version of the race tomorrow.

The only thing that tricks you after finishing each day into thinking you're not totally crazy is the hotels and food. These hotels are nice. How nice? Like let's say you were coming up on your 25th wedding anniversary, saved up for a really nice trip with your wife and wanted to impress her... like that kind of nice. Quaint, beautiful, all cobble stoned and old but with modern renovations. The dinners are white tablecloth, 25 item gourmet buffets, local wine and olive oil and vinnegar on every table, with a full set of silverware and glasses... like you're glad everyone else in the room is wearing post race clothes too cause otherwise you might feel two notches underdressed. It's pretty unbelievable. I thought the race fees seemed a little high, but now I see they're a total steal of a deal.