bicycling from Porto to Santiago

[pgtorrez]

I'd appreciate your suggestions & ideas. My group of four riders plan to bicycle from Porto to Santiago on the coastal route in August 2018. If you have completed this trip, I am interested in your guidance and intel. We are experienced bicyclists. We'd like to ride 30-40 miles (48.2 km-64.3 km) a day. What would be good stops? I'm interested in some good overnight lodgings (hotels or the like) along the route, good cafes & coffee and restaurants, and memorable sights along the way. Thank you for your help.

 

[TulaB]

We just returned home from biking the the central route. It was during the recent hot week (unexpected). The coast would have been a nicer option I think. We rode rental bikes that were just manageable barely. The fit was not ideal and the breaks were pretty bad. Any steep bumpy hill required excellent descending skills. From near the airport where we started to Barcelona was very rough with cobbles and it Took MUCH longer than we anticipated. Part of this was the cobbles are exhausting and the other reason was the heat.
Some thoughts about biking:
1. As hard as you try you will still scare people on a bike. Their heads are someplace else and they are not expecting you to come up behind them. Lots of ola’s help and thank you in any language. Most of the walkers were fine with us.
2. You will be going fast so missing a turn is more likely .
3. We detoured to the n550 near Padrón when a bus load of seniors got off with their walking sticks and started on the trail. We got back on later and it was fine.
4. Take a day off mid trip to enjoy the area. I wish I was able to do this more. Tui/Valencia would be a great place to explore. Pontevedra is a big city that comes alive at night and fun to explore.
5. We stayed in Padrón the last night Plenty of places to eat. Getting to Santiago about 10:30 was nice. We just sat and watched the people coming in from all Camino routes. It is a zoo with people, tourist Choo Choi train, street artists etc. but we’ll worth spending a day walking attending mass, finding other small chapels and sitting in on mass. We found one at night that was a cool relief from the evening crazy time and was a small but beautiful service.
6. Just do some homework about finding places to stay and don’t worry about food. There are groceries so you can picnic and people selling fruit on the trail. Coffee is great and available. Take more time than you think you can do it in. We met a guy averaging 100k a day. He was on a different Camino journey than us.
Lastly: there are plenty of other bike rides in the world that are more scenic, more difficult, more adventure than the Camino. So it is not about the bike. Explore, learn, meet people, and slow down. Truly...bom Camino to you and your group.

 

[John White]

I started the camino from Porto the end of July 2017, several things come to mind to describe the journey; cobbles stones where everywhere, 5-10 kt headwind the entire time I was on the coastline, there were boardwalks listed as part of the bike trails- I found it was less stressful to avoid these more direct routes as they were somewhat narrow to combine bikers and walkers, I was told (and believe) that Portugal is the 2nd most mountainist country in Europe, the final point is pretty subjective as this is the only time I have been on the camino- it could have had better signage (anyone know how to load .gpx files on a garmin edge 800).

I fell in love with Portugal, the people were great! I stopped three little old ladies for directions who didn't speak english but they were willing to help me. Before they were done there were eight people discussing the best way to cross the river. Great place, I will return! Take the advice from TulaB, slow down and smell the roses.