TransPortugal Day 8

Portugal: 4.  Erik: 4.

I hate starting from drastic underdog odds, but at the end of the week I feel I evened up the score on this race at least enough to feel respectable.

Woke up tired this morning, but a few coffees out of the space age coffee machine did the trick.  It seems the different hotels seem to have an arms race going on how fancy of a computerized coffee maker they can have.

Didn't warm up at all, just stood with bike at the line.  Today's start was to my liking - zig zag high speed gravel descent for 1km right away so I could work my way through the euros without burning any matches... 300 meters out I had the late hole shot.  I won't tell them my tire pressure secret, I don't think they know how I carry more speed through the corners.  Come around a final right hand sweeper and it's granny ring for a long technical climb full of rubble and loose rocks.  Awesome - none of this pack of 15 hanging around all day.  By the top of the climb we're already reeling in the 2 and 4 minute advantage starters, and Joao is the only one ahead of me from our group.  We start a long gravel road descent with sweeping corners, and the two Belgians l like chase on so we can ride together today, as well as Frans.  Everyone shifts up to keep pedalling hard at high speed, and...

... the rest of my day goes a little more moderately.  My rear shifter pod is frozen, busted, toast, can't get it to move for the life of me.  Even took my pump off on the descent and tried beating the piss out of it to see if anything would move.  Nada.  So much for hammering out the day with Dries and Thomas, I was totally looking forward to that.  I don't feel so bad part of the way down when I pass the yellow jersey fixing a flat.

I assess what this is going to mean for the day.  I've already passed a lot of people.  My rear derailleur is right in the middle cog in the cassette, so that's decent enough.  I have three gears and 90km left of hilly riding with a headwind (when the Portugese coastline is all cliffs, but we dip down to 3 beaches, you can guess there's some climbing). I'm gonna make it through with this torture test one way or another.

We exit the gravel onto a rolling paved section.  By default, I mash gears on the hills and spin out quick then tuck the decents, but I'm still making good ground and picking off more riders.  It's actually fun, and the fact that they're looking at me like I'm nuts gives me more energy.  People that I pass right near the crest of a hill get on my wheel and draft my tuck on the way down and the flats.  I resovle to blow them off each upcoming hill and switch them up for a new set.  If nothing else, it's fantastic leg strength, spin, and interval training.

We get to the base of a long gradual climb with a strong headwind... and when I'm talking strong headwind, I mean the Portugese thought I was a good enough headwind here all the time to a) run a bike race straight into it, and b) line the entire top of the hill with wind turbines to generate electricity.  I'm having fun though and in all honesty it's better than a tailwind that'd have my gearing spun out.

At one point I have to pump up my rear tire a bit, and the yellow jersey and Luis come by, so I hop back on and ride with them for quite a while.  Frans looks at me like I'm nuts to attack him on the hills until he sees I'm just working with what I've got for gears.  He laughs.  We end up having a good time for the next hour or so as his English is good, and he doesn't seem to be in a hurry today.  Luis takes us on a wrong turn right before a climb up the cliffs, and once we get back on track there's 10 people hike-a-biking in front of us.  I figure that hiking steep cliffs on a traverse straight toward the ocean means we're about to ride one of those narrow singletrack ledges soon, and I sure as hell don't want to do that behind these 10 people.  I do a slightly off trail hike a bike at my own pace and a smooth cyclocross mount to remedy that... and straight ahead it's just the Atlantic staring me down.  Superb!

Hang a left before crashing down 200ft of rock face and wind along the ribbon trail, it's awesome.  Turn left back inland and push gears up some monster climb which I had to partially hike a bike up.  This set us up for the forewarned drop of doom loose rubble descent, which was 150m of straight shot awesome downhill.  The best part was, we climb the opposing hill perpendicular to to the descent, so as I climb I can look over and watch the complete mayhem of the next 10 guys, it's worth every penny of admission.  One bites it near the bottom in the bushes, another two half way down, others panic and try to use one leg as an outrigger... I'm loving it so much I yell across the valley.

Up the climb on the other side, Frans catches back up.  We ride together for about 45 minutes, it's fun.  We talk bike racing, upcoming events, this race, life in general.  Finally we get onto a false flat downhill and I'm to spun out to ride with him, so I'm on my own.

There's a few more technical sections along the cliffs, a paved climb I ride up at some stupidly low cadence, and then we're into the headwind aiming for Europe's most southwest bald ass rock with scrub vegetation before we turn left to Sagres.  I'm alone the whole time until the last few kilometers where I see two guys gaining on me.  I don't really want to get passed, but I'm spinning for all I'm worth.  We've got only 3km to go, and about a kilometer ahead on straight road I see the grade kick up - I can't wait as it's my only hope.  Once there I spend the rest of my energy in the last two kilometers, first pushing up the pavement in my big ring, then forcing the big ring through the singletrack down the beach... with the gap reopened nicely if I do say so myself.

So I ended up 12th, which I'm happy with considering the 3 gear scenario.   I recovered with a Sagres beer and a dip in the cold Atlantic.  Couldn't be happier, this is a hard race.  I felt teriffic this morning and strong all day, glad I was I having an up day to help deal with the gears, if I felt poor it would have been a real challenge.

Only 5 minutes post finish all the suffering seems long lost in my memory and I can only savour the positive parts of the experience.

I'll be back for sure sometime to complete it, I don't like unfinished business.  I've learned a few tricks along the way to ease the experience, but really comes down to proper preparation - and for something this size, all I can think of is the famous "ride hard, lots".

Love the country, the people, the sights, the food, the amazing hotels and the suffering.  This is the hardest race I've come across yet - the long daily distances on tough terrain don't make it easy at all... and that alone is reason to love it more.