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On the Road to Malpica do Tajo

Rob Howard / 11.11.2009

By Wednesday morning teams were passing through the town of Castelo Branco, arriving on bikes after a long overnight ride (6 maps worth) and checking in at the local sports pavilion and swimming pool on the outskirts of town. Here they met up with their support crews (although as it's not an assistance point they can't 'interact') and collected their skates and/or Trikkes for the next stage. This was along the road south towards the Spanish border and the Tagus river, Portugal's biggest which emerges at the capital Lisbon.

The first team to arrive in Castelo Branco were Raid 74/Outdoor Sport of France at 03.30 in the morning, followed by Absolue Raid (also of France) at 03.58. After this teams came through at regular intervals throughout the morning, most using skates but some taking Trikkes. One Portuguese team had 4 Trikkes when the route book says only 2 per team are allowed, but I'm told they brought along 2 of their own rather than skate! Judging by their progress they'd been practising as it's the first time I'd seen a team ride a Trikke maintaining momentum without pushing.

The route was along a main road, and the surface was good, but teams needed to watch for trucks passing by as not all the support crews were tailing their teams with their hazard lights on as instructed. There was also one section where the road twisted down a steep escarpment and teams were instructed not to use their skates for safeties sake, although Trikkes could be ridden. Elsewhere there were more descents and some skaters had ground their brakes right down, including Adam Marcinowicz of Accelerate.

Some of the mixed Trikke/skate teams had adapted their techniques. Helly Hansen Prunesco of the UK were again towing the Trikkes behind their skaters. They are one of faster moving teams with most checkpoints, but last night there was a protest lodged against them by another team saying they saw them use an out of bounds section of road at CP18a. Team Globaz.pt/Boxit tried a different method, riding two up on a Trikke with their skates hanging off the handlebars!

On arrival at T10 the teams had the use of another local hall to get changed for paddling on the Tagus river, which forms the border with Spain, then had to walk 4km down tracks in their wetsuits to get to the river and CP28a. It is the warmest day so far too. On the paddle they must portage past a large dam (Spanish owed and run but in Portugal) and also have the option to go for a bonus CP along the Rio Sever. To beat the first official cut-offs (as opposed to section opening and closing times) they need to finish the paddle by 21.00 to be allowed to continue on the full course. There is also a second cut-off at 03.00 tomorrow morning and both are designed to keep the race moving with the faster and slower teams alongside each other, a plan which so far is working well.

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