After searching the webs for a couple of hours and not getting anywhere - figured I’d ask here. I’m heading to Portugal in the off-season (December) and I have a half day hall pass. Besides, Lisbon we’re spending some time in Evora and Algarve.
Appears Lisbon is really more of a leisurely bike path city and not conducive to an aerobic road ride, but maybe my assumptions are wrong here. In regards to latter two areas - anyone have some suggestions for an open road route in the area that’s safe? 40-70 miles. Either gravel or road. Also would need to rent a bike somewhere… maybe someone on here can point me in the right direction
as far as rentals, I’d imagine you could find something locally down south, but when I went a few years ago I used https://www.cycling-rentals.com/ they ship to hotels or businesses (so no private residence/AirBnB). Since I was staying at my parents’ home, we had it shipped to a cousin’s restaurant lol I had a fuji road bike, which was fine but definitely very well used. So that’s a rental option. I’m afraid my knowledge of routes is pretty limited. But I find ridewithgps a pretty decent place to find routes.
In Lisbon you have Monsanto Park the heart of the city, either road or gravel/MTB you will be ok but it’s very up and down and despite having lots of roads and trails it’s all in a small area. going out of town you can head north where the traffic is better, an example:
On Sunday it’s the more relaxed day to ride and if you like hills and stunning vies head west to Sintra or cross the river by boat (with bike) and head south to Serra Arrabida:
Let me know if you’re still looking for road rides in the Algarve area? I used to holiday in Lagos a fair bit so know the roads pretty well (for a tourist).
TBH, once you get out of town there aren’t that many roads, so the Strava or Garmin heatmap should give you a good idea, but I can share some routes if you’ll be near Lagos?
Thanks for the offers and route suggestions. We’ve nixed Lagos and are staying in Evoka and Lisbon. I followed hub cyclist’s suggestion and found TrekTravel routes on ridewithgps in Evoka which look promising. If I get a hall pass in Lisbon I’ll surely try one of JPs routes as well.
I was recently in Portugal on hols. It’s a lovely country and I’ve been a couple of times. The area of Algarve near Tavira toward the Spanish boarder is super but most roads quite narrow and cars do drive fast so unless you veer outside the bigger roads to farmed areas it’ll fee quite busy. Do have a look at past tour of Algarve routes and you might find that most of the 2023 or 2022 editions have ridden on decent quality roads although some would be really busy since they aren’t closed off outside of racing.
This time round we were near Lisbon but I felt the same about traffic, not too safe, so I rented a MTB and had fun riding through farmland and forest areas with no traffic and some awesome sights. I mostly ride gravel so this complemented gravel in a nice way whilst feeling really safe and is what I’d recommend. There are some bike paths by the coastline near Lisbon such as heading north from cascais.
