Back when I was a keen young club rider, riding through the Northumbrian lanes in mid-January dressed up like a trawlerman to stave off the wind and rain, most of the two abreast chit-chat revolved around the impending club training camp. Usually, the destination was Majorca. Being a student and therefore penniless, I was an envious outsider. I never had the pleasure of joining the team for ascents and descents of Puig Major and Sa Calobra, followed by après ride beers and tapas.
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All good things come to those who wait though. Fifteen years after watching my rain sodden club-mates get the fidgets thinking about those smooth, dry and novel Majorcan roads, my turn came. Even the weather of January 2016 had been good enough to remind me just how wet, dank and miserable England can be when it’s time to think about the upcoming training camp. Rather than the Balearics, my destination was the verdant hemline of southern Portugal that juts into the Atlantic, the Algarve – land of golf courses, beaches and high-rise hotels.
My guide for an afternoon riding in the Algarve was Luis Silva, a recently retired ex-professional who rode the Tour of the Algarve, an early season race for the likes of Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas and Tinkoff’s Alberto Contador. Luis is a local, making him a perfect choice to show me the network of roads in the Algarve interior.
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- The course: An afternoon's riding on the best roads that the Algarve has to offer, including Roman cobbles, gracefully swooping hills and coastal roads
- The horse: KTM Revelator with Shimano Ultegra groupset, DT Swiss R24 Spline wheels, 25mm tyres
- The equipment goal: A bike that can handle cobbles, climb well and descend capably enough to dodge roadkill at speed
The bike I rode
From one of the local bike shops, Luis sorted me out with a KTM Revelator fitted with a Shimano Ultegra groupset and DT Swiss R24 Spline wheels with 25mm tyres. It was standard bike rental fare really: reliable but hardly striking.
It had been serviced recently and so ran perfectly smoothly. The cassette ratio was far too wide for my tastes and made for annoying changes, particularly on climbs. I did wonder how good it would feel to ride a super bike on such great roads, but then the next swooping corner came and it felt great.
Hidden gem
A high score on the Ideal Riding Index
Picture-perfect landscape
Local knowledge
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