A dream come true!

After more than a year waiting for the moment when I could start participating on the low-cost mountain bike Portugal crossing, I finally was able to join this amazing journey.


The VPBTT (Portugal Crossing on Mountain Bike) began in the end of 2007 and has been crossing Portugal from Lisbon through the South Portugal littoral, it went across the Algarve and now it started to rise north through Portugal`s interior. Of course this has been done during several weekend stages because we all must work to afford the expenses (even being low-cost LOL).

Now that I am already able to ride my mountain bike I finally joined this group of great friends on this country traversing. And I can only say that Portugal it is really BEAUTIFUL!


This last weekend we started at Vila Real de Santo António, near the southeast border with Spain and we headed to Mértola where we all slept on a gym before heading to Serpa during Sunday.

Packing my sleeping bag after a good night sleep.

During my first stage (it was the 11th for the rest of the group) we made 115km and on the second day we rode 70km. But, even though the terrain was not easy or plain, I would make it all again just for the fun, the views and the fellowship. From now on there is nothing that will impede me from going through the rest of the stages, and when it gets to Lisbon I will go through all the first stages I couldn´t participate because of my injuries.

You can find more pictures on the following links:
11th stage (VRSA-Mértola);
12th stage (Mértola-Serpa).

Next stages will take place on May 30th and 31st and I will be there to enjoy every kilometer.

It is finally ready...

Well, in fact it has been ready for almost a month but as soon as I got my new full suspension mountain bike assembled I couldn´t let it go so I have been riding since then LOL.

OK, I am kidding. The truth is I have been really busy with work and I have not been able to post here.

My new assembled mountain bike

Now that I have rode more than 300km I can say that I have found my new lover and it was love at first sight.

A couple weeks ago I decided it was time to attend my first mountain biking event with my new bike. It was a 4 hours mountain bike race which went really well and where I had lots of fun riding on very interesting and enjoyable trails.

I hadn´t have so much fun in a long long time.

This weekend I entered on a 24 hours mountain bike race and I had lots of fun riding it even though the course was really tough with steep uphills and some technical downhills. If I hadn´t this marvelous piece of machinery I would never be able to go around such difficult track, specially because of my handicapped wrists.

Can you tell I was having a fun ride just by my smile? This was more than 20 hours after the start of the race.

The most difficult for me was the night riding. Even though I had very good lighting system the risk of falling made me stop and rest until the morning.

In the end I achieved all my goals:

• Do better than I had made back in 2007;
• Finish the 24 hours riding;
• Avoid falling;
• And most importantly, have lots of fun.
  

It is finally here! My new MDEbikes Carver frame

As I have told you earlier I was expecting the arrival of my brand new full suspension mountain bike frame. And after a torturous wait it finally arrived yesterday!!!

Can you feel my excitement!?

Before I present it here I must warn everybody to put sunglasses on because it will become brighter and shiny in this post. You know how stars can shine, don`t you?




Are you ready!?

My brand new "shining" Carver frame

I tried to photograph it from different angles with and without flash but nothing worked... It really shines LOL.

I already started to assembling it but that will be subject for another post soon ;)

My skin has never been so smooth...

That is right, after two "muddy" week-ends I am sure both my skin and my bike have never been smoother LOL. I must admit I am starting to think if I should wait for better weather before going back on the trails again. Too many expenses with maintenance are making me consider the possibility of staying home and pedal on the spinning bike only.

This was before last Saturday night ride under a big storm. As you can all imagine I have not taken any photos myself. Check out more pictures HERE.

I have rode more than 100km (60 miles) during the last couple weekends and most of them on very muddy conditions. My bike`s transmission is starting to cry for help and I will have to change the brake pads after less than 500km...

Photo by Jorgex, I am the one with the bright orange jacket in the middle of the peloton.

I love mountain biking but I will try to stay on the roads as much I can during this next rainy weeks. At least my bicycle will thank me, that`s for sure.

MDEbikes has a brand new website for 2009!

That is right, MDE bikes just launch its new 2009 website with a new design, lots of pictures and latests informations. If the old one was already very easy and intuitive to navigate through all the information, the new one it is even better.

New year equals new "face"!

And that was what MDEbikes has done, but although having changed the image it will maintain its fresh happy feeling without changing their goals:

"... design and make each and single piece with an extremely high attention for quality."

Do not miss the opportunity to check it out and see all the new models for 2009:

WWW.MDEBIKES.COM

Have fun!

Saturday ride

I woke up yesterday and immediately felt the urge to ride all day. I began by warming up doing a little road to get to the beach and breath some of that marvelous ocean air while standing there watching the waves hitting the sand (Sorry, I forgot I had the camera).

After that refreshing moment I pointed to the trails and ride 20km until getting to Óbidos village where I went uphill to the castle. I never go to Óbidos without drinking at least one "Ginginha de Óbidos", this time I had two lol.

Photo by yudis_asnar

Photo by Supermariolxpt

Now that I had warmed my guts was time to get on the trails again and this time I went around Óbidos Lagoon (I live on the other side) riding on the new eco-trails that go around the entire lagoon.

I decided to lunch at home and return to the trails just after eating. At this point I found my friend "Rafa" who was finishing his lunch and he decided that he also wanted to ride that afternoon so back on the trails we went. But this time we took a bottle of red wine to keep us hydrated lol.

But it did not take long before we had to stop because of a flat tire (I believe he did it on purpose). Thankfully I had spare tubes and he managed to change it or else we would have to walk his bike home lol.

At this moment and because there was not much time before sunset we headed home with a almost empty bottle.

In the end I have made 55km and drank two Ginginhas and almost half bottle of red wine (good one by the way).

Another great day having fun riding my MDE Slider!

I Love "Revenges"!

That´s right, while waiting for my new full suspension frame to arrive I decided to join a group of friends (more than 30) who were going to revenge the fact that one of them did not reach the end of one of the latest mountain bike rides they had made. The challenge was to ride more than 100km (60miles) on trails between Casa Branca and Pinhal Novo (Portugal).

Even though it was a bit cold that morning everybody was happy and anxious to get started. We decided that it was best if we all left our cars at Pinhal Novo and take the train to Casa Branca. All the bikes were carried by an open truck.

This was my first long mountain bike ride since 2007 when I broke both wrists and so I have to admit I was a bit nervous.

But that did not last long because as soon as we started riding I felt great and I didn`t even want to stop (it was really cold LOL, there was even some ice on the trails).

We arrived at Vendas Novas at midday and we had a real banquet with a delicious fish soup followed by meat/bread/wine, and in the end we even got a big birthday cake!

After such a great lunch we had to be strong enough to get on our bicycles again and finish what we had started.

For me, dancing was the only way to warm myself before restart riding LOL.

In the end my cycle-computer showed me 114km (I rode back several times to keep from freezing while waiting for the slower group LOL).

And for ending a great day nothing better than drink some beers and eat something surrounded by friends ;).

If you wish you can check out more photos of this day at ProjectoBTT.com