Garmin Trans Portugal
To the Algarve
Agnelo Quelhas / 10.05.2010
Leaving Évora in the direction of Viana do Alentejo, the party passed the Sra de Aires church, a very large building on the outskirts of a tiny village which stands somewhat incongruently tall in the local flat landscape. Midway through the day they went over the Alvito dam wall, that creates a large lake feeding water to many local communities north of Cuba.
The trail alternated on and off the road, as in this region the large farms don’t leave much open space to pass off-road – these sections on tarmac helped raise the speed average. Once again Alentejo’s natural beauty proved to be a great background not only to ride on but also to take pictures. As we got further south, towards the Algarve, the green of the fields and the colourfulness of the flowers kept on increasing until Ourique, where the scenery abruptly changed with the proximity of the Algarve hills, as if we had entered a different country.
The stage winner was Milan Spolc, who crossed the finish line only a few seconds ahead of Luís Leão Pinto. The Czech and the Portuguese rode close together all day, and on the first half of the trail Tiago Silva and Marco Almeida where also part of the group. Further down the stage they caught Greg Anderson, who was isolated in the lead, and eventually overtook Linsdey Haak (who reached Albernoa eight). The South-African Brett Sach was able to take good advantage of the 45 minutes head start he gets because of the handicap system and only got caught by the fast group near the end, in Santa Vitória, and finish in sixth place, his best score so far.
The five athletes rolled together for many kilometres, with Milan Spolc making several attempts to escape the group. He was successful near Beringel and only the leader of the race Leão Pinto was able to chase him. Right at the end, they both misread the GPS and missed the last turn, a few meters from the finish line – Spolc backtracked faster and won the day. The rest of the group followed close and on the last sprint Greg Anderson was faster and got third place, Tiago Silva came forth and Marco Almeida fifth.
Tomorrow the riders will have to go over the Espinhaço de Cão hill. This difficult climb marks the passage from the Alentejo to the Algarve. But before this they will have 40km of ups and downs characteristic of the Ourique area. When they reach the dam at Monte da Rocha they will be at the foothills of Espinhaço de Cão, the final part of the stage and also the most challenging because of the its steep rocky rise. And just after overcoming this they’ll find the Monchique hill that rises sharply from 110m to 620m in only a few kilometres. Caldas de Monchique marks the end of the 137km stage.
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