Garmin TransPortugal Mountain Bike Race
Competitors are starting to arrive from around the world
Louize Hill / 27.05.2008
We are back from the two week tour, and it was the wettest in the tour's 10 year history... and the 10 day weather forecast is predicting more of the same... which means we can expect rain for the first stages of the race at least.
The rain brings both advantages and disadvantages – the temperatures are lower, in the past couple of weeks they rarely exceeded 20-25ºC on the clearest days, and were often closer to 15-18ºC. But rain also means mud... and we saw our fair share of this!
We rode the race route from North to South, made a few final tweaks to avoid blocked paths due to forestry work, etc... and finalised the race maps. We have already sent the stage profiles out to the racers. In less than a week they will be setting off on stage 1!
The count down to the start of the race has begun. On Wednesday Pepe and Domie, last year’s 1st and 3rd place finishers arrive, as does Toru Watanabe, our first participant from Japan! Most the other international racers arrive on Thursday, and the final few arrive on Friday.
We set off to Bragança on Friday evening for the long (6h) journey up to Bragança, giving the racers all day Saturday to set up their bikes, get sorted out and rest. There will be the race briefing in the afternoon and a test ride to familiarise the racers with the start of the route and the use of the GPS on the race route. This should mean that this year no one sets off in the wrong direction on day 1!
More very soon... as from Saturday the daily reports will be posted here on SleepMonsters, meaning you can follow the race almost as if you were with us!
SleepMonsters
