Its a bit after the event, but having written it all down for posterity I figured I might as well share it with people who 'understand' as opposed to my work mates who have no concept of riding bikes.
Its a bit wordy but hopefully a cup of tea will get you to the end.

Matthew

I’ve never felt like this before, physically shaking and grinning inanely whilst riding flat out up a hill. I don’t think I’m having a seizure, I’m uncorking 2 weeks of taper and expending far, far too much energy on the first climb of the 2009 Transportugal. I’m catching the earlier groups and feel like a mountain biking God, well for 7km at least until the fast guys catch me and blow me into the weeds, I suck it up and keep pouring it on, topping out and heading down hill just fast enough to make sure I don’t have enough time to avoid a funny shaped rock which promptly lets all the air out of my rear Racing Ralph. Time to stop, fix it and watch a train of Belgians go past, arse!

The Transportugal is a little known race now in its 7 year, traversing Portugal from Braganca in the North East down to Sagres at the bottom of Europe. This undertaking of 1000km and 20,000m of climbing is pretty much all off road and takes 8 days, this year 70 people are taking part quite literally from all over the globe (Russia, China, Brazil, Trinidad, USA, Scotland and seemingly half of Belgium to pick out a few). For each day of racing we are self supported with just a GPS to guide us from start to finish, no external help allowed and no water or feed stations laid on, you fend for yourself – makes it a bit of an adventure. We all race in 1 category with time handicaps allocated to each person based on age and sex. If you are a 40 year old guy (like me) then you get a 1% allowance based the winners time from last year, if you are a female then you get 12% allowance plus anything else for age. This means on day 1 my group of 36 – 40yr olds start 4:09 ahead of the zero handicappers containing some of the fastest guys I’ve ever raced, obviously this is going to make all the difference…

Day 1 – 141km, 3800m of climbing, 17th
The first day is a bit of a monster, we ride an undulating and scenic route from Braganca to Frexio in blazing sunshine. It kicks off at 9am with a 500m vertical climb then barely a flat bit until you get to the end, similar in character to the South Downs Way, only a lot, lot warmer. We are warned at the briefing that no-one will win the race on day 1 but plenty of people can loose it. This is my second bite at the TP cherry, knowing what’s coming I elect to ride conservatively, this lasts until we are flagged off and the red mist descends. After fixing my puncture I chase down the people who’ve passed me and basically ride harder than was originally planned but more or less in control. I find I can hardly remember any of the stage from last time, this is the same throughout the week and I can only put it down to blanking out the whole 2007 experience. After a lot of pedalling and some random Pop Will Eat Itself lyrics running round my head all day I eventually cross the line in 7hrs 47min in 17th place, a mere 2hrs 11 behind the leader. Walking around the finish camp dribbling recovery drink down my shirt I feel distinctly wobbly, vague and in need of shade, the average temp for the day has been 32C and has caused problems for a lot of the field. Several riders coming in behind me look distinctly like they don’t want to talk and a couple end up rehydrating in the local hospital. I patch my UST tyre, trough heavily on the all inclusive food and seek sleep.

Day 2 – 115km, 2351m of climbing, 13th
Our second day takes us to Alfaiates. It is hotter than day 1 and its clear a few people haven’t really recovered, yesterday I caught a guy with aerobars (why?????) at 140km, today I catch him at 7km. There are 2 signature features of today’s stage, firstly a rather tricky, technical descent down a bouldery goat track to a river followed by a carry up the other side, then 80km of rolling double track which yields 150m of vertical gain end to end, unfortunately you probably gain over 1000m of vertical in the process, into a headwind….. I walk half the descent after a huge endo last time, in reality it’s all rideable as demonstrated by Tom Letsinger from the States who is riding a Ti Richey frame with rigid carbon forks and a 1×9 drive train. Some would describe Tom as a little eccentric – I’ll just say I’ve never seen anyone descend so quickly regardless of suspension set up so he’s all right by me. Overall I ride for nearly 6hrs today and it is getting hotter – averaging 33C. There are various water points along the way, some cafes (generally slow to fill up) and some water taps (quicker), the game is to stop as little as you can and carry just enough water to get you between stops. It’s a risky game in these temperatures and I’m carrying a bit extra just in case, I catch-up with one of the omnipresent, black clad Belgians about 20km from the end who couldn’t find the last water stop and is looking a bit thirsty, I give him my spare bottle in exchange for a promise of beer in Sagres. I promptly take a wrong turn down some inviting looking singletrack and loose 5 minutes to him. He never did buy me a beer either! The last café I stopped at marks the best euro I’ve ever spent when 1.5litres of chilled water goes straight over my head, what a difference that made. The heat is starting to effect me with some huge blisters on my left hand and blisters on the soles of my feet from the constant shaking through carbon soled shoes.

Day 3 – 111km, 2658m of climbing, result – all a bit vague
This was my favourite stage last time, it’s a mere 111km from Alfaiates to Ladoeiro, the profile makes it look like there is more descending than climbing, but it still packs a punch with a lot of height to gain. Our route takes us through the Malcatta national park which encompasses the border with Spain, we criss-cross countries a few times whilst following a fantastic rolling double track along the tops of the mountains. Amazing views as far as you can see, no shade whatsoever and some shockingly fast descents, these have the odd water bar dug into them when you are least expecting it, I hit one at speed and have a huge tank slapper moment narrowly missing one of the American’s who is dusting himself down after a similar misjudgement. Once again it is hotter than the day before with an average temperature of 36C and topping out at 42C, as such the organisers lay on an extra water stop just before we traverse what must be the hottest valley in Portugal. My inability to follow a gps is becoming frustrating as I pass the lead woman 3 times in 10 minutes, must try to stop my brain melting. Having negotiated the valley floor we climb through a sweet smelling Eucalyptus forest covering the ‘hill’ on the other side, you can tell its going to be steep by the fact the climb is a straight line and the screen of the GPS is coloured in with contour lines at right angles to the route, and its now officially baking. At the bottom I note sealant coming out of my tyre where the glue has melted on my day 1 patch, the hill is too steep to ride so I push up the sweatiest climb of my life and find some shade at the top to stick a tube in before trying to catch back some of the places I’ve lost. I pass a couple of Belgians before a thorn intervenes and my other tube is called into service, not a good day. 10km from the end I give my pump and patches to a Canadian who is on his 4th flat of the day and I manage an incident ride to the finish and some shade. Fixing the tyre in the evening my better half calls me with an up-date from the 12 week scan she just had – we’re expecting twins!!! I have a beer to focus the mind which is now wandering like it has never wandered before. I have no idea where I finish today, but it’s a good day for many reasons ?

Day 4 – 102km, 2211m of climbing, 12th
Looking out the window you can almost sense a collective sigh of relief from the field as the day dawns pleasingly overcast, the heat has played havoc with my stomach (‘like jam through a leafblower’ is the best analogy I can come up with) and this might be the respite I need. Today’s shortish stage to Castello Del Vide, should be a good chance to bank some energy before tomorrows huge day. All such plans go out the window when Tom somehow manages a rolling start downhill, this immediately turns into an all out war with 4 of us egging each other on in a needless chain-gang of pain. We realise we’ve gone out a bit hard when we stream past the 2% handicap group containing previous winner Ricardo Melo, he has a double take when we pass him with a “who the chuff are you?” look on his face. Further stupidity is demonstrated when Tom and I try a break off the front of our now quite large group, thankfully it doesn’t work and we are soon chased down. We stop at 45km for water and let the race-heads inflict further punishment on themselves, after having started the aggro in the first place. I ride the bulk of the remaining kilometres on my own, tagging along with some quick Belgians towards the end and the steep, technical cobbled climb up to the castle and 12th place, my best result so far. At the front of the field there is a bit of controversy today when last years winner and this years leader Joao Mahrino looses his GPS part of the way into the stage, since he and Frans Claes in second have been pretty much shadowing each other all the way so far, Joao elects not to go back for his unit and rides in with the front group. The race officials and leading riders have a ‘polite chat’ behind closed doors with the up-shot being Joao getting a 3hr penalty and loosing the kilometres he rode without the gps (found by someone else). This puts him out of the game and Frans into an unassailable lead. Joao looks (understandably) pissed off.

Day 5 – 163km, 3020m of climbing, 12th
At La Ruta I was nursing a huge hangover by this stage, and I'm not even half way yet!! This is a biggie and will take us out of the rocky, mountainous north and into the farmlands of mid Portugal and our destination of Monsaraz, the tough stuff is all at the beginning though with a couple of big climbs (one up roman cobbles) and some big descents (again one cobbled) before we get into rolling farmland. At the briefing last night we are told by our almost poetic race director Antonio that the descent down the cobbles will be rough enough to “shake your souls loose”, this sounded suspiciously like “shake your arseholes loose”, either would have been accurate given the number of bottles laid by the wayside. For once I live up to my promise and ride conservatively, a lot of the day spent with Tom and towards the end in a group of 5. The group work together until about 15km from the end when Luis (one of the locals) puts a spurt in, I chase him down and find the others haven’t followed me, i press on over what was once a cobbled track and is now just a horrible mess of rocks, Luis doesn’t or can’t follow and I end up hammering it all the way home to gain as much time as I can, up another granny ring climb to a castle and down the other side to the finish, the thought of a top 10 position keeps me going but I find I’ve come in 12th again after 7hrs 30 of controlled effort. It is apparent that this is a race where if you see a town or castle on a hill in the distance you know you will be paying it a visit.

Day 6 – 140km, 1828m of climbing, 4th (yes that’s right 4th!!!)
If this were the Tour de France then day 6 would be a transition stage where teams elect head-bangers to breakaway from the pack on their own to liven things up whilst the big shots in the GC take it easy. Today myself and my now riding partner Tom were those headbangers. After a flat start where the 1% and 2% groups caught each other fairly early on, we put a particularly large effort in to get clear at about 30km, this hurt but worked perfectly. At 60km we were caught by Joao and Frans who had dropped the rest of the field, I began to think Tom had thought this through in advance as we sat on the wheel of these 2 far superior cyclists and let them drag us through a stiff headwind. For me this turned into a 40km interval session from hell – every time we came to one of the many rolling hills I was bleeding out of my ears to keep up. At 100km we finally reached the climb that blew me out of the back and I ended up time trialling the last 40km on my own at full gas trying to stay away from the closing pack, lets just say this hurt a lot but at the finish I secured 4th place by about a minute with a ride taking just over 6hrs. I don’t ever recall riding that hard for that long, especially not with over 300 miles in my legs for the week, I was in bits but was wearing a large grin and didn’t care how bad I was going to feel tomorrow, today made all those cold, wet training rides during the winter worth it.

Day 7 – 133km, 3048m of climbing, 16th
This was going to be a case of getting through it after I’d blown myself to bits yesterday. Unfortunately there was rather a lot to get through to reach Monchique, time to MTFU and get on with it. I gave it the berries for the first 40 or so kilometres to sit on the back of slightly less knackered group that worked its way through the last of the flatlands and headwinds, then the same story as yesterday when they went up a hill quicker than I could and I was on my own. After a couple of climbs halfway through the stage (nothing in the tank, hello granny ring) I stopped at a café for water and squeezed in a particularly violent espresso and suddenly the world was a better place, my legs seemed to work again and we were back at the races, almost. Just as well since the stage features nearly all of its climbing towards the end, fuelled by coffee (this is now officially my best euro spent) and my last Torq caffeine gel I made it over 3 climbs of 300 – 500m each and down the descent to the finish and dinner. Finished up in 16th place with a time of 7:29. Looking round dinner in the evening it was like a scene from a zombie movie, everyone was battered after 3 incredibly hot days followed by 4 days of riding into a headwind, forcing food down was becoming a chore that people were not really relishing anymore. Erik Bakke a 4 time veteran of La Ruta had taken to filling one of his water bottles with soup by this stage to give a tasty alternative to energy drinks, he swore it worked well, I was put off by the weight of his bottle and besides it would be too hard to suck out of my camelback.

Day 8 – 93km, 1796m of climbing, 9th
The final day drag race to the beach at Sagres where cold beer awaits, what better motivation could there be? Before the race my goal was to have a total time of less than 50hrs, from where I was today I needed to finish the stage in less than 4:59, so basically an average for the day of over 20kmh would see me right. With this metric displayed on my Garmin and the knowledge that life was about to change significantly with the impending arrival of an instant family I had more than sufficient motivation to give it everything in one last effort. After forcing down a reasonable amount of food last night I was feeling about 100 times better than I had 24hrs previous and I beat the the big ring like it was the metaphorical ginger step-child, damn the shocking costs of a replacement from Shimano! The first part of the stage is fast and flowing and gives the opportunity to get the average speed high, the second part of the stage is along the Atlantic coastline, offering fantastic views of blue ocean and waves crashing onto the beaches below, all with a vibrant blue sky as background, just like the ones you never get in England. The second half also features some techie singletrack around the edges of cliffs and some steep ups and downs to various beaches which knock the average speed back very effectively, quite a change after a lot of rolling farmland and the Algarve mountains of the past few days. 10km out of Sagres I was ahead of schedule and riding on my own with a huge, shit-eating grin forming, then I spotted a couple of locals riding together about 30 seconds back. All thoughts of a gentle spin into town were put on hold as the race face was reapplied and I went into full-on Wednesday night time trial mode, they were going to stay behind me or I was going to explode. Fortunately they seemed more interested in the view and after a vigorous 20 minutes or so I sighted the finish and at the second attempt found the right road down to it.
I rolled in 9th which was a pleasant surprise and I ended up with a cumulative race time of 49:19, this then lead to a bit of self examination, where could I have found more time to push me up from 13th overall? Could I have gone harder on day 1? In retrospect I’d taken 16hrs off my time from 2007 and was the first Brit to go under 50hrs in the race so I think that’s probably enough for this week.

What did I ride? :
Cotic Soul in custard with Revelation coil forks
Stans Olympic rims on Hope ProII hubs with 2.25” UST racing ralphs
XTR groupset
Easton / Thompson finishing kit
SDG Bel Air saddle
Endura MT500 shorts and NO saddle sores, thanks to Mr Assos and his minty arse lard

The fact that I was riding a steel frame with relatively big forks generated a few funny looks from the continentals who all seemed to be on Scott Sparks / Scales with short travel forks and skinny tyres, they looked a bit more closely after I managed the 4th place. Apart from replacing my rear tyres after getting sick of patching it I had no mechanicals and my back was fine throughout, leading me to think I made the right choice, particularly when I could wind the forks out at the top of the hills and enjoy rather than endure the descents.

Would I recommend the event? – absolutely, this is a race organised by bike riders for bike riders, there is a fantastic atmosphere. Crossing a country by bike is by definition a cool thing to do and this is a great country to do it in.

Would I do it again? – I did it when I was fit enough to survive in 2007 and this year I was fit enough to race properly each day, I’m not sure I’d want to do it in the former mode again, the extra 2hrs each day I had to recover made a big difference, if you are rushing from bike to food to bed each day you just get run down and develop that 1000 yard stare that is oh so common amongst endurance athletes earlier rather than later.

Only read the first paragraph so far but even so, WOW!!!!!

Is there a website for the event?

Superb! Have heard of TransPortugal but never seen a race report before. As Pete says, is there a website?

Did something similar last year in survival mode, your final paragraph sounds all too familiar!

that would be here http://www.trans-portugal.com/

Questions, questions…

Was humidity a problem as well as heat?
I assume you had to supply your own GPS unit?
Were you given the locations of water sources for each stage?
How feasible is it to participate without knowing any Portuguese?

Thanks 🙂

humidity – wasnt' really an issue, the first 3 days were REALLY hot but it was a dry heat. I was getting through about 8 – 10 bottles of Torq per day to start with (note to self – always take more than 1 flavour to these things)

GPS – you can rent one from the organisers, they are also the dealers for Garmin in Portugal, think it was about 100euro, I bought my own a couple of years ago, got it for cost from the organisers as I was a competitor. Have used it loads since then.

Water spots were briefed out each day, a mixture of fountains in village squares or cafes. The laid on an extra water stop on one day when it was biblically hot and people would have run out.

Portuguese – I got by with please / thankyou / and the all important "2 big bottles of water and an espresso please". If you make an effort the locals seem to understand.

If you do it make sure your shorts / saddle work well together, a lot of people suffered really badly with saddle sores, I carried a small amount of assos with me most days "just in case" but didn't need to call on it

Nice one – good read.

I would probably struggle to do one of those days, especially in that heat, let alone 8 days in a row.

Damned good write-up.
I don't normally read anything on here that long but that was a bit of a compulsive read.
That's beyond my physical limits – so respect, that looks like a tough race.

Matt, this would have made a great article in the mag, did you submit it to STW?

Mods – Is it too late to get this published with some nice photos that Matt has to illustrate the story?

"beat the the big ring like it was the metaphorical ginger step-child"

Sheer class. Chapeau to you on your amazing effort. Now you can put your feet up and look forward to telling the twins about it.

After struggling along at the back of Trans Germany last year I can relate to this, apart from the bits where you're near the front!

What was the accomodation like?

Brilliant 😀

great write up. i want to do it. sounds amazing! and well done 🙂

accomodation was top drawer, stayed in hotels which got progressively better as the event went on. The start line each day was where you finished the night before and the hotels were pretty much all within staggering distance of the finish. Another plus point was a large table of food at the finish line, plus you could drop your recovery drink off in a box the morning and have it waiting for you at the finish.
Lots and lots of food as well, basically a week of binge eating with some biking chucked in

Hello Matt

Thank you for you superb article.
As member of the organization I must say it is an honer to have you
participating every year.

For 2010 some interesting changes will happen.
I hope the twins will grow up fast so you can join us again soon.. :o)

Cheers!

José

Is the route legal when the race isn't on? If so, is it possible to download the route anywhere to make a slightly easier two-week holiday?

Hello Doctor

The route is legal, although some properties are private and we need special autorization for that particular day the race must cross it.

I don't think you will have problems, but is just to let you know…

For an easy version you can try the same course in a tour mode with
pretty much the same features.
Visit the organization website: http://www.ciclonatur.pt/ or to be more specific: http://www.travessiadeportugal.com/

That was how Matt started… ;o)

Cheers

Transportugal?

Brilliant write up – only just discovered it!

That sounds like one brutally hard race. I did the Transalp this year which maybe averages out at a bit more climbing daily, but the distances in the TP are a good bit longer each day. Would be like doing 8 Kielder 100's on consecutive days, but in hot conditions…

😯

Nice one fella….

good write up. was a bit disappointed there were no photos but considering the times you put in i'm not surprised….!

Well done!