A Holiday in Mud & rain!

segunda-feira, maio 16, 2016 David Barradas 0 Comments


5th Transportugal - Done

I just finished my 5th Transportugal ! I ended in 8th place between 107 riders. The only reason i did so well this year was because the weather was miserable during 7 of the 8 days and a lot of good riders better than me quit due to the bad weather. Things are never so bad as they seem. 

One of the days we started with wind, rain & minus 2 Celsius. However as soon as we descend the mountain to a lower altitude it almost stooped raining and temperatures climbed to 8 Celsius! So i did put some old newspapers inside my wind stopper and i started anyway. Many of the other riders missed this day because the conditions at the start were really impossible. (if you missed one day you are out of GC / general classification) Since the stages were some 6 or 7 hours of riding if conditions persisted it would be impossible. But things are always better than they look. It was my lucky day. Other riders put a lot of heavy clothing (leg warmers, winter coats etc... and had to stop to change and lost some 15 to 20 minutes. I just had some old newspapres that i got rid off in the first garbage box i found.

In perfect conditions i would have finished out of the top 10 but as i said i got lucky.


If you're going through hell, keep going. 
Winston Churchill

Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the situation. 
Jack Nicklaus


Crossing Portugal in 8 days, north to south; finishing in Sagres - the southern west point of Europe; 1000 km of off-road racing across forest tracks, gravel roads and steep single tracks on clifftops.
Racing from hotel door to hotel door, overnight stays in the best hotels in the region, excellent food and relaxed atmosphere all around.
No signs, ribbons or arrows to indicate the way. Intuitive flawless GPS guiding. You can never get lost and you are always sure you are following the right race track.
An innovative way of racing where each participant follows a virtual marked track on the screen of his GPS receiver.
Always racing across very isolated and peaceful landscape and in self sufficiency, no aid stations and all external support is forbidden.











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