Soak in the atmosphere - bike touring provides the perfect speed to get to know a country. Ride at your own pace, stopping to smell the flowers and experience the local culture. Quiet backroads and macadam trails will lead you to the next vineyard, cultural hotspot and charming hotel, where you'll get to relax and experience the local gastronomy.
My husband and I had an extra day in Lisbon and we booked a mountain bike tour ahead of time. Live Love Ride Portugal was great! They contacted me via what’s up and they upgraded us to electric mountain bikes for our ride through Sintra with no additional cost!
Luis the tour guide, picked us up from our hotel and took us to the start of the tour.
He was amazing, took us up the highest points visiting points of interest and an incredible view! If you are looking for a great challenge and fun, book with them! Top notch.
After we were picked up from the airport and driven to the hotel, the magical adventure began. Riding the Douro Valley was just magnificent. The scenery and landscape could not be compared to anything I've seen before. Riding consisted of 35 to near 50 miles each day with elevations of 3,000-4,500 feet gain at an average 5-8% grade. On the last day of riding, the most difficult of all, we experienced a 16% grade that seemed to go on forever. Every day presented itself with great challenges wonderful pleasures and fantastic downhills that would go for 6-7 miles at speeds of 25+ mph. WOW!!
Our group was small with 7 riders plus 2 guides. The locations we stopped at were local places giving you a sense of real Portugal.
The people running the tour couldn't be better. They address every need from the group. We used carbon bikes from Scott that performed flawlessly even when riding on cobblestone which was in almost every town or village.
I can't speak highly enough about this adventure. However, that said, be sure to come well trained with lots of hill climbing under your seat because it's challenging everyday.
