Albuferia, Portugal

kidfelt78

Hello all.

Off for a week in September and taking my bike abroad for the first time. Can anyone point me to a checklist for what I will need, I assume the usual items for when at home but anything specific? I have a Garmin 200 which seems to be OK to set up a route on (I've got myself a paper map as well just in case) but this will work won't it? Just needs to find the satellite right?

Does anybody have any routes around the Albuferia area that I can perhaps upload, preferably around the 'mountains' if they can be classed as this!
Thanks, Kieran.

whoof

I don't have any download maps but have ridden in this area.

If you want to ride in the mountains head for Silves and then Mt Monchique (turn left before the village of Monchique for the summit). The best riding is definately in land away from the coast. I have used the N125 to go along the Algarve, East or West before heading North. It's rolling with a good surface so you can easily cover some distance before exploring quieter roads. It also has a sort of hard shoulder on each side populated by bike/moped/horses-cart. This hard shoulder ends West of Portimao and you can't ride a bike over the N125 to Portimao.
At one point the N125 was known locally as the road of death as there was on average a fatality per km per year. Mainly young person crashing their cars, but the building of the A22 may have reduced this.

whoof

I don't know much about computer maps but this may help.
http://www.mapmyride.com/pt/monchique-faro/
http://www.routeyou.com/en-gb/location/ ... 00086&z=11
I do know about GPS though, your system will need to find a preset number of satellites to obtain a position. As they aren't geo-stationary this is not a problems as they are going overhead in most parts of the world all the time
Also you can Monchique a mountain as it's 900 m and you start at sea level

With regards to a list other than what you would normally need for a bike ride; a bag or box for the flight some spares (brake and gear cable, tubes may be a tyre). Decent pump as they ask you to let your tyres down on the plane.

kidfelt78

Thanks for the advise Whoof, I'll take a look at that! 8)

heatonrider

stayed in Silves in April this year. I would avoid the coast like the plague if you want to go home alive. We had one trip to Portamaio .. was not pleasant. North of Slives and to the east is good. Roads can be variable and you can run out of tarmac to find yourself on a dirt road. Over the top from Monchique is a fantastic loop, one of the best rides ever ridden. We used a german published map from Amazon and no GPS etc. The N124 is okay to ride as most of the traffic is on the A22. There is a guy called Tomas at www.swiftmomentumsports.com who can help with routes (he will do you them and sell them to you..) .. like i said, we used the map and worked one out - could check what the map was at home if of interest.