Cycling in Portugal (Western Algarve)........?

[MadDad]

I am off on my hol’s in the near future and will be spending a couple of weeks in the Western Algarve with the wife and kids, I am really looking forward to the break, but am not looking forward to having a couple of weeks off the bike.

My wife suggested bringing one of my bikes so I could get out in the morning before we make off for a day on the beach, and having checked with Queasyjet it costs £25 each way to ship a bike as sports equipment, in comparison with their passenger tickets quite reasonable!

I have two questions for the P/H massive;

Has anyone ridden in the Western Algarve area and if so what are the roads like?

Has anyone shipped a bike with Easyjet, and if so what was your experience like (did it get there, were there hidden charges, did they damage the bike)?

[daz3210]

I've not shipped a bike, but I have shipped Roller Hockey Equipment (including sticks) with no problem.

Advantage of 'sports gear' is that the weight limits are none existant. I last went via Leeds Bradford, and they even asked me to take the kit to the loading area rather than using the conveyor system since it was less likely to snag and get damaged.

[Gizmoish]

Wiggle do a good cycle-packing box I think. Fill it with clothes etc to pad it...

Sounds like a nice idea actually. Might look into something similar for the south of France myself.

[SuperNiceBig]

Off to Western Algarve, Salema later in the year. Wandering about taking a bike. Have flowen Easyjet and Ryan Air with bikes in Hard cases and standard cardboard bike boxes. No damages either way. Pack and pad them really well. It is pot luck with any piece of airline luggage.
Although EasyJet did fail to unload our 7 bikes at Gatwick once due to a fast turn around. Bikes went back to Geneva. No one knew where they were. No one to help, until my son went behind the EasyJet counter used ther phone to make internal calls and they appeared very quickly. Still took 3 hours to track them down, collected them the next day. Funny now, not at the time, about £15,000 worth of Mountain bikes.

[MadDad]

Thanks all, I am now almost 100% set on taking the bike, I was half expecting to have a dozen PH-ers reporting their bikes being destroyed in transit by Easyjet!

I have found this on CRC, seems reasonably good for the money; http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?Mod...

We will be staying at Budens near PDF, about 2 miles from Selema - really nice area, quiet, empty beaches, nice food - can't wait!!!

[SuperNiceBig]

Well at least it's obvious whats in the bag. I usually take rear mech off and tape to frame, foam padding around frame and stuff cycling gear in aswell to pad it. Enjoy the Portugal.

[R2FU]

I was just down the road from where you are going in early June (at Marinhal outside Sagres). I didn't take my own bike but you could hire reasonable mountain bikes at the place I was staying so we went out on a couple of rides. Roads are pretty reasonable, the main roads tend to have space at the side where you can cycle and most roads are pretty quiet. Getting off road the whole peninsula there is basically a big national park. It's relatively flat and quite sandy so was hard going in places but still fun.

If you're OK with it being more about sightseeing more than riding the best trails ever then there is plenty to see, an old fort at Sagres, lighthouse at Cape Saint Vincent, various surf beach spots (Someone will pop up now and point out all the great routes I missed!). One thing I would say is it can be very windy there to the point of it becoming quite difficult to ride into.

If I'm being brutally honest I'd say I probably wouldn't go to the effort of taking my own bike as IMHO the riding there didn't really justify it, just look into hiring something locally I'd suggest. But that's just IMHO as I found it challenging enough just transporting two young kids and all that goes with them on the flights!

Whatever, I'm sure you'll have fun - enjoy!


Edit - sorry I've automatically assumed MTB without knowing whether you were thinking that or road bike, purely because I don't do the road thing myself!

Edited by R2FU on Tuesday 7th August 14:47

[daz3210]

Out of interest what sort of money are you looking at to hire?

[R2FU]

Can't remember the hire charges offhand but I don't remember thinking "ouch" - so must have been pretty reasonable. We just hired for half days a few times when we fancied heading out, I can ask the Mrs later and see if she remembers.