While we filled out the appropriate paper work, I did fret a bit as to whether our greeting party from the TP would wait outside for long seeing as it was so late. As we talked to the agent, my phone rang, and there on the other end was Jose Carlos organizer extraordinaire, asking what problems we were having. Not to worry he says, “lost baggage happens all the time in Lisbon; finish the paperwork and meet us out in arrivals and we will get you to the hotel”. Once at the hotel we bunked down and surprisingly despite our jet lag I slept solidly through to 0830 the next morning.
Once up, we went down for a nice breakfast and a meeting with the other Canadians on this trip; Mark James, clothier and restaurateur, his son Josh, Trevor Linden, former Canuck legend, Paul Player, sports businessman, and Graham Tutti, software and tech salesman. All have done races of this type in the past, although there does seem to be a fair bit of trepidation regarding the length of this particular event.
Our hotel is pretty much next door to the local bull fighting ring. Perhaps we should be taking up a new sport?
After breakfast I got on the phone and surprise, surprise, BA had found my bike. I asked them to hold it at the airport and jumped a cab back to the airport while the rest of the team went for quick explore of the Lisbon waterfront. I get to the airport and guess what, my bike has already been flown out of Lisbon to the north of the country and should meet me in Braganca. The emphasis by the agent was definitely on “should”. Oh well, perhaps Jose Carlos may have a new employee for the week.
Back to the hotel, and then off on the long bus ride from Lisbon to Braganca, about 7 hour long. Thankfully a few beers were bought and of all our travelers, I think that “Dave Norona” partied the most. This hardly seems the way for a professional adventure junkie to prepare for a big race. It will be interesting to see if he makes the start line on Saturday.
When we arrived in Braganca, my bike was sitting in the lobby of the hotel. Whew!!! I guess I will be racing after all.
Friday was spent in Braganca putting together bikes in the morning.
We then went for a quick ride to make sure that our bikes were in optimum condition. We spotted a castle on the rise above town so off we went to check it out. If this is what the rest of the race holds, we are really in for a tasty scenic treat!
The afternoon was spent in a briefing on how to use our GPS’s and information on a few other organizational quirks associated with this race.
The organizers have loaded the entire race track and map on our GPS’s and will enable each days track as it arrives. At the end of the day we must hand in our GPS’s, and they will “verify” that we actually followed the track. If not they will apply time penalties appropriately. If your battery runs out and your GPS stops tracking, then you are responsible for immediately replacing them or again because they cannot verify your track, you will be charged a penalty.
The race is also handicapped. The actual days race “start” may be at 1000, but depending on your age and sex, certain individuals will be allowed to start earlier by a percentage of the optimal stage time as determined by last years winning time. For example, for tomorrow’s stage, Mark and I will start at 0928 while Trevor must start at 1000. First person to the finish line wins. Sounds pretty cool! That is a little bit different than your normal race.
It’s off to bed in preparation for a long day tomorrow.
Many thanks to photographer extraordinaire Carlos Dias for some of the photos.
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