Five Beaches in a Day

Day nine in the Algarve and the last ride of the trip, the morning after the long day over Fóia to the Alentejo, so this one was the last roll of the dice. The plan was a coast day with as many beaches as I could fit in. It was clear and almost still when I rolled out of Silves just before nine, about 20°C with barely a breath of wind from the north-east.

The first climb came straight away, a Cat 4 drag out of Silves inside the first five kilometres, and then the roads flattened out through the orchards towards Algoz. From there it was easy miles through Tunes and Ferreiras and on through the golf courses of Vilamoura, spinning along in Zone 2 with the sun climbing behind me.

Beach number one was Quarteira, the turning point at 40 km, where I spent twenty minutes on the seafront before heading back west, past a giant woven sculpture on one of the town’s many roundabouts.

Beach number two was Praia dos Pescadores in Albufeira. I paused on the clifftop to look down over the sand, already filling up by midday, and then took on the longest climb of the day, 2.4 km at 4.6% up and out of town, a Cat 4 by Garmin’s reckoning.

Inland again, I stopped for a few minutes in Alcantarilha by its white-and-grey church, then dropped back to the coast through Armação de Pêra, beach number three, before the steady rise up towards Porches.

Benagil, beach number four, was the highlight. I leaned the bike on the railing above the beach, among the café umbrellas, and took in the golden cliffs and the wooden steps down to the sand. Then came the price of admission: the climb back out of Benagil, with a short ramp near the bottom that had me pushing well over 300 W just to keep turning the pedals.