Trans Portugal Garmin
Over the Estrela Mountains
Agnelo Quelhas / 03.05.2011
At 9:00h the group was rolling towards the Serra da Estrela Natural Park. The first climb took the athletes to the start of the descent of the Tintenolho using a cobbled stone road this was a very technical 5 km section that really shook up the participants – it really was one of the hardest and most beautiful spots of the third stage.
Then a long climb left from the bottom of the valley to the summit of the Santinha, at 1600m. In the middle there were some resting points, like the passage of Videmonte and the fast rolling paths to Portela de Folgosinho. Up to here Kate Aardal was still at the front, with the fastest athletes approaching fast. Marco Almeida was having a bad day, losing time in the uphill sections.
After the very steep, hard and technical trail to Santinha, the 360-degree views at the top gave an exhilarating sensation of freedom and one could really smell the difference in air quality. Here everyone put their jackets on, as the temperature dropped to 10 degrees Celsius and the wind was picking up a bit.
Afterwards came the long descent to the Zêzere river valley, with beautiful passages through extensive forests of beech, and a very fast and rocky downhill to the bottom. The hardest climb of the day was next, a 20 km uphill trail with very steep sections and amazing views of the Zêzere glacier valley. Everyone was looking exhausted at this point - the 3 extreme days, with 360 km through some of the hardest and most incredible trails of Portugal took a hard toll on the riders.
Gijs Dohmen was at the front, with Ignacio Romero, today’s surprise, just a few minutes behind. The last kilometers of the day were done on the long descent from the top of Piornos to Unhais da Serra, traversing a fast secondary road and finishing in the luxurious H2otel - a new comfort hotel and spa at the bottom of the hill with the mountains as scenery.
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