Sept 15, 2017 Mounte Junto

This morning Liam and I were up early and on the road by 8:05 AM.  This was exceptionally early as we have never gotten away this early before, however today was to be a big day with a lot of climbing.  When we departed the wind was quite stiff and out of the North.  I was a little concerned as the wind seems to pick up in the afternoons.  However as this was our only opportunity to do this ride over to Monte Junto, so we were going wind notwithstanding.

Our route took us down the back roads to the now familiar Obidos castle and aqueduct.   My camera caught Liam riding through the arch where the road crosses the arch.   While the road to Obidos has lots of hills reaching 10-12% grade they are all quite short so the first climb of the day started as we went under the arch.  It is about 4 kms and averages about 9%.  Liam is busy saying that this is nothing just wait. 

At about the 30 kms mark we had already climbed close to 600 meters so we rolled into a super market to  fill up our water bottles and get a snack.  Liam scored some Pastel Natas which were fresh out of the oven and only 0.25 Euros each.  They were great. 

At the 35 kms mark we started the climb to Monte Junto.  The road had a lot of switch backs and twists and my Garmin was reading 10-12%.   After several kilometers Liam said see that wind mill up there?  Sure it was right there about 75 meters straight up on one of the knobs.  Well it is about one third of the way.  Thanks for that!  The Garmin is now reading 14% and the road it so steep I thought I was going to spin out.  The best I can do is about 6.5 km/hr.  The wind by now has increased dramatically and every time you came to a place where there was a break in the trees you got a blast.   After a lot of grinding and huffing and puffing we came to a view point which over looked the country side below.  Jaw dropping does not even come close to describing the view.  We took a few pictures including a couple using the self timer and rode on.  By time we got to the top we were above the trees although there were still plenty of bushes.  The wind was now closing on wind tunnel force.  You had to pretty much hang on to something or get blown over.   There are ruins of a monastery which was built in 1213 at the top and a church which was built in 1800 as well as a modern radar station.  I was saying that you could see Newfoundland from the top but was corrected.  You could easily see everything for a long ways.  Monte Junto is 660 meters high and is easily 300-400 meters higher than anything else.  A few pictures and we were off.

Liam and I cycled down the other side of Monte Junto which was much more open and the wind gusts would grab the bike and almost throw it over.  Wind notwithstanding it was still much easier going down.  On the way we passed a couple of Portuguese style wind mills.  The blue and white wind mills with the cloth sails are so iconic of Portugal.  I was pleased to see a couple as they are now quite rare.   

We had a very nice late lunch in a side walk café in Bombarral.   After lunch we passed a bunch of fields which has these huge squash of melons in them. They were easily 12-18”in diameter and 2-3 feet long.  We then headed down what turned out to be a busy road towards Peniche. It was straight into the wind and by time we had gone about 15kms into the wind we stopped for a coke.  I had, had enough of the wind and so we turned towards home.  It was still about 35 kms and most of it was going to be into the wind. Although once we got off the busy road we were in a more wooded area and the wind was not as bad. 

By time we got home it was 6:05 pm so we had been on the road for ten hours and had covered 125 kms and climbed 1975 meters. The rolling average was 18.5 kms/hr, which was quite surprising considering how much time it took to climb Monte Junto and the time spent riding into the wind at probably no more than 14 kms/hr.   The Garmin gave me a calorie count of 5775 calories.   It was a long hard day on the bike but a very satisfying one.

Suibhan had made a delicious super of curly pasta and a meat sauce for supper which sure went down great.

Terry