The plan was simple enough: pedal 540 kilometres before the 26th of May and arrive in Pontevedra, Galicia. Simple on paper, anyway. I started where every bikepacking trip through Portugal should start — under the Ponte 25 de Abril, the bridge that towers over the Tagus with the kind of scale that makes you feel […]
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The Ultra Cycling Packing List You Can Always Find Again I’ve started more than a few races with a vague sense that I’d forgotten something. Not because I didn’t pack carefully — I always made an ultra cycling packing list. The problem was where it lived. Sometimes a note on my phone, sometimes a Notion […]
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Every rider who has lined up for a self-supported ultra has made the same mistake at least once: gone out too hard on day one, felt invincible, and then paid for it for the rest of the week. Pacing an ultra-distance race isn’t about your fastest possible speed. It’s about finding the speed you can […]
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I signed up for one of the hardest gravel challenges in Europe, an event that ultimately broke me near the finish. Covering 735 km with 14,000 meters of elevation through some of Portugal’s most remote mountain regions, The Goats is something truly different. Day 1 – Penhas da Saúde to Marialva We lined up in […]
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Next June, I’ll return to the start line of The Goats, one of Portugal’s toughest ultra-distance gravel races. It’s 730 km long with more than 15,000 m of climbing across some of the country’s wildest and steepest mountain terrain. The name alone — The Goats — gives a hint about what’s coming: steep climbs, rocky […]
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Gravelbirds is an ultra-cycling event like no other. It began for me on May 11th at 6:30 and ended five days later — I crossed the finish line on May 16th at 16:39, just four hours before the cut-off. It was tough, beautiful, and unforgettable. Let’s break it down day by day. Riding across the […]
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