Whats wrong with Portugal?

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
drossall
Posts: 6115
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 10:01pm
Location: North Hertfordshire

Re: Whats wrong with Portugal?

Post by drossall »

drossall wrote:We're staying for a week near Coimbra next month. I get a day's pass (and a hired MTB of unknown quality) to go off for a day's riding :D

Just to give my experiences for the record. From what I saw, there's some brilliant touring to be had on quiet roads.

It's pretty much a case of a flattish western coast, with mountains inland. Coimbra is on the edge of the mountains. We were actually a bit south, just off the N17-1 near Espinhal.

The roads in that area are very quiet. Driving, we met something coming the other way from time to time, and something going in our direction almost never. The cycling I did was really quiet too.

This is probably helped by the network of motorways/dual carriageways that have been built recently, and take all the long-distance traffic. Even the nearest of those (A13), however, was very quiet - in early September, we saw another car or two every minute. You need to go onto the A1 Porto-Lisbon road to get levels of traffic that we'd recognise (and of course cyclists wouldn't be on either of these roads). The A13 spends its entire distance in cuttings or on massive viaducts, which gives you some idea of the significant hills in the area.

Going back to cycling, my hired bike turned out to be a ladies' MTBSO. For all sorts of reasons, including the limitations of the bike, I kept my ride to a few miles. I rode first up into the real hills to the east. The N347 to Castanheira de Peira is a really good climb, with an incredibly steady gradient, that goes on for miles to rise to nearly 800m, before (obviously) descending similarly into Castanheira. I only rode part way, not getting above about 450m before turning round and heading for some of the lanes between Espinhal and Penela.

These were again good riding, although I did fail to find my way in one place. I had the Portuguese military maps, ordered from Stanfords. They are close to OS quality, but up to 20 years old, and so show none of the new motorways above. This wouldn't matter, but local lanes have been diverted where they crossed the paths of new roads. Also, what are marked as dry-weather roads can become forest tracks. Hence, I found myself heading off-road with an uncertain map, and turned back instead.

I also had a GPS with open-source mapping, but it wasn't detailed enough. Not sure whether that was my mistake, but it didn't show the dry-weather roads where I got disoriented. Other minor roads were fine (and very quiet again), and I completed my loop happily on an alternative route. Later, we drove the entire route over the mountains to Castanheira, and then turned north over another set of mountains, topped by a row of wind turbines, to Lousa.

This would be a fine area for touring, with little traffic. I can't speak for the rest of Portugal. Lisbon and Porto had parts well worth visiting, but are busy like cities everywhere. Except where recent roads have changed things, good maps for cycling are available. Road numbering is a bit confusing because there are several systems co-existing. Pedal Portugal was helpful on this.

Hope this helps.
Last edited by drossall on 19 Sep 2014, 11:09pm, edited 1 time in total.
borisface
Posts: 360
Joined: 19 Feb 2010, 3:48pm

Re: Whats wrong with Portugal?

Post by borisface »

Glad you had a good time. The A13 is a very new road - an extension towards Coimbra was only finished earlier this year and in any case no part of it seems to appear on any maps I've seen nor on my GPS maps.

The climb up from Castanheira over towards Lousa (and the descent) is particularly lovely and fairly gentle, if you're ever over again.

The roads are hilariously empty, so much so that it is quite usual to wave and be waved at by any vehicle you encounter. The only problem is that when I was last cycling in the UK I'd forgotten that we don't do that....
drossall
Posts: 6115
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 10:01pm
Location: North Hertfordshire

Re: Whats wrong with Portugal?

Post by drossall »

I've corrected my post above - it was indeed to Lousa and not to Coimbra that we drove from Castanheira - don't know what I was thinking of, but I'll plead that after a week I was still working out the geography. I still do know the difference though...

It is indeed a great road. I've actually developed a certain vertigo when driving in mountains, which is embarrassing for a cyclist. Comes of living too long in the flat lands, I think. This was high enough to set me off, without being dangerous or challenging as a drive. I did try not to stare down into the valleys! There are barriers where there might be risks, but it's no Alpine pass. Fortunately it doesn't affect my driving, so much as give me cold sweats the night after - very odd. Still wouldn't have missed the route though. You'd see more as a cyclist since, driving, you really should have eyes only for the road, of course. It's quite forested, which limits views somewhat, but there are breaks at points near the top.

I was intrigued by the way that the road follows (while climbing/descending steadily of course) the contours around shoulders and valleys, winding its way up/down without really needing switchbacks.
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