Ride of the day - Face the weather!

Now that I have your attention, let me start by saying this, the weather here in the south Portugal has been sucking ass, big time! Supposedly I live in the sunniest part of Europe, and thats been a reality! The sun during the day really shines hard and beautiful, but do to the severe wild or criminal fires, that we've been facing in the last decade, this area of Portugal suffers with really strong north, northeast and east winds all year round. the lack of natural barriers, give a small breeze a huge power. A normal day consists winds above the 25kmh, and thats a normal day!

But today, I finally got a break from this crazy winds and instead the forecast said rain... Lucky me :( I woke up, feeling like riding but the sound of intense rain outside, made me sigh... Made breakfast, saw some youtube videos while I was waiting for the pancakes to settle down on my stomach and just like an angel kissing me, I felt a ray of sun hitting my face. It was like a trigger to me to go! Don't get me wrong, I was going anyway and this was a one of a kind ray of sun.

I wanted to do this loop for a while now, mostly because I knew there were this steep segment and that it was mostly new roads to me that would prove to be very scenic.

The route on the map.

It was cold around, 8º degrees to a Portuguese man standard it's freezing! The route was absolutely amazing, always trough empty roads, filled with wild life, all sort birds, I clearly saw a wood pecker, an eagle, and a Azure-winged magpie. The road starts flat and after ten kilometers, it starts snaking around small hills. When it finally reach the base of monchique mountain, all the climbing and the extremely scenic views starts. About this area, the weather goes even lower. And it did rained a little bit.

Snaking around the hills, near a hippie community that does the best vegan pizza in Europe!

On the highest point, you can see the corner of Portugal and also Peninsula Iberia very clearly, it gives a strange feeling to know that a continent ends there. I do stop a lot to contemplate the views, i have no problem with that, I don't chase times on these types of rides, is just about having fun, exploring, meditating while climbing and being one with the nature.

Barragem means dam in Portuguese and that was my next destination.

After the summit and before I start my descent, spotted this amazing curvy insanely steep road in the distance, and after consulting maps.me I decided right there, that road was gonna be my next segment to be "open".

You can see the crazy switch backs and a steep hill on the distance.

I started descending to Bravura dam, bravura in Portuguese means brave, kind of similar with english. Amazing descent, don't remember seeing a car on the way down only a lot more wildlife.

Some of the cool descents.

Empty roads, and the wind generators shows my point about the wind thing.

Dam bravura with heavy dark clouds watching me.

So it was a really nice ride, exploring the place that you live and seeing all this beauty gives you a boost of an amazing positive energy into your life. These are the final stats of the ride.

Distance: 70,60km,
Time pedaling: 2:51:46,
Elevation: 1.001m,
Average power: 149W,
Energy spent: 1.534kJ,
Speed average: 24,7km/h
Máx. speed: 59,0km/h
Total time: 3:08:46

You can check it on strava here.

Vegan Tales