PORTUGAL’S MOST SAVAGE ANNUAL GROUP RIDE!

EPISODE #186
I’m back at it with the TGV boys… with yet another epic 300km battle to the death. A brutal course with over 2500m of elevation, but still as always with these guys… we ride it as fast as we possibly can! This was disgusting… and painful! BUT worth every bit of suffering, because it was an incredible day out with the TGV, always an honour to roll with this crew!
Thank you…
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Check out the TGV guys:
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Here’s another video I done with the TGV:

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Thomas “The Cycling Tattooist.”

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Film & Editing: Thomas Martinez.
Intro Music: Press 1, Lukas Got Lucky.
Intro Film & Editing: Joe Simkins, Karl Kolecava.
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00:00 INTRO
00:28 EPISODE 175

I’ve infiltrated a local cycling crew here in Portugal, the TGV, named after the high-speed train, who are known for riding at an utterly ridiculous pace. I’ve been on some absolutely crazy rides with these guys, but nothing could have prepared me for this, a ride that would turn out to be one of my most challenging I’ve ever done. 300 km with over 2 1/2,000 m of elevation ridden as fast as we possibly could. This was going to be brutal. It’s about time we do this, sister. It’s the cycling tattooist. When it So, things started off at an unruly hour. I got up at 400 a.m., smashed a bowl of cereal down my neck, loaded the bikes in the car, and then we were headed for the town of Mira. Thomas. Yeah. You. This would be where today’s adventure would start. 5:30 we would set to head off whether we was ready or not. You ready? I’ll tell you, one of the craziest things is just over there is a nightclub where there’s still people there partying and then there’s these crazy bastards. This is the real party. The crazy thing is that once upon a time, that would have been me outside that club. But look at me now riding my bike with this crazy bunch about to rip each other’s legs off for 300 km. Oh, how times have changed. And we’re off. Only 300 km to go. Oh, every time I do these rides with these guys, I ask myself the same question. Why? Why? Oh, morning. We was covering ground quickly and the crew had made light work of settling in to a steady but rapid pace. And I knew full well that this was setting the tone for the rest of the day ahead. So it was a nice early start. I think we ended up hitting the road just before 6:00 a.m. in the end. We’ve managed to clock up 20 km already. As uh some of you may already know who have seen these TGB rides I’ve done in the past, they’re always rather fast. I say that lightly. They’re absolutely rapid. Anyways, as I mentioned, we’ve got 300k on the cards today. So, a big big day on the bike. We got a long way to go, but one thing’s for certain, it is going to be a great day out on the bike. Well, I say that now. I probably won’t be saying that in 300k time. I’ll probably be crying. Time to get to work. As the sun started to show its face, everyone was in high spirit. The group was working really well together, firing on all cylinders. But it wasn’t all smiles for long. You okay, Thomas? Yeah, my train’s gone off. Luckily, it was a quick fix and I was straight back on the road. The guys had waited for me up ahead, so I rejoined the group and we set off again full steam ahead. We was absolutely tearing it along, eating up the mileage. The route was taking in some beautiful views and some of the best roads that Portugal has to offer. Sometimes when I’m riding here, I still have to pinch myself and remember that this is my home. Now, at around the 100 km mark, we had our first planned fuel stop of the day, and I was very happy about it. I’d fallen a little bit behind on my nutrition, so it was time to play catchup and get some food in the belly. This is how the Portuguese do it. full by meal in the middle of a a 300k ride. We have to eat until Okay. Is it now? Shrimp. Yeah. Prawn. I know that word. Prawn. Yeah. Shrimp. Yeah. Same. Same. Same. I’ve got a bfana or is it a prego? Is with the cow beef. Bana is with pork. Eva is delicious. With our fuel tanks filled, we was back on the road and making good progress again. And you could definitely tell that everyone was re-energized because the group was really putting the foot on the gas. But not all was well. It seemed that it wasn’t going to be only me that was having issues today. What’s going on, mate? My bike My bike is not helping. Neither my legs are. At least I have a new belt. Ah, that works. At least David’s having a few mechanical issues and he’s crying about it. Mechanical, physical, psychological, all sort of issues. Seems uh a few people got lost somehow. Some sort of argument going on over here. What’s going on then? Give us the gossip. You know the good thing that when you’re not part of the group is that I mean they cannot argue with you. It would be rude. A few of us may have slightly pushed the pace on the front. Uh David was definitely one of them. Uhhuh. Uh I was kind of around. It wasn’t really my fault. Apparently we’re in trouble. But I’m just going to keep my head down and uh so I don’t get told off. That’s one of our support vehicles for the day. These boys they do now to put on a group ride because the ride today is a point to point. Obviously is quite a bit of logistics involved. Not only have they got the support car, they’ve also got a van as well that’s uh following us and bringing all the bikes home as well. So yeah, a proper a proper affair today. We’re approaching halfway now. 140 km done. only 160 left and uh we’ve got four hours on the clock. So, we’ve been cruising along at a a healthy 35 km an hour average, which dare I say it is a little bit slow for these guys, which is wild to say really, but uh yeah, I can’t imagine it will end up much slower than that for the whole ride. In fact, spoiler alert, the pace wouldn’t go down at all. it would actually go up, which at this point in time I didn’t even think was possible. Anyways, I’m not quite sure how much further we’ve got until the next proper stop. We’re stopping in the town of Fatima, which is uh the place that we stopped out on the last ride. It’s a bit of a a holy place. And uh today especially apparently, not that I’m up with all the uh Catholic stuff, but uh apparently it’s something to do with today was the day that the uh Virgin Mary came to visit or something. She came for tea or I don’t know what the story is. So there’s bound to be loads of people at Fatima when we get there. Can you take me all the way to the top, please? We had come to a pretty challenging section of the route with backto back climbs, some of which had doubledigit gradients, not ideal for a 300 km ride. The views from the top were incredible, but there had been some rainfall up there, which certainly made the descending a little less enjoyable. more of a hold on for dear life kind of affair. The weather really doesn’t know what it’s doing today. It’s literally taking a Mickey out of us. It was just getting rained on and now the sun’s out. Wake up your mind. It’s toying with my emotions this ride. I think we’re stopping for a lunch stop now though. Cheese and ham quant my name on it. Good thing I brought my do it all jersey. Leave in the comments if you like David’s jersey. Do it all. I know it looks like a [ __ ] suit, but maybe I’ll maybe I’ll photoshop a ball gag in his mouth. Just open your mouth a bit like that. There you go. It’s proper bondage stuff. Bondage. Yeah. Don’t record that. I’m going straight to hell. Wow. That is a lot of Catholics. I’m sure there is some hot nuns in there. David’s on the lookout for some hot nuns. Oh, yeah. Naughty hot. Hopefully Andrea doesn’t see this. She knows what she has at home. So, we had made it to Fatima, which meant it was time for our second stop of the day. And I was so glad. I’d been thinking about that ham and cheese quissant for miles. To be honest, I could have eaten a shoe at that point. With this sort of effort, you really do work up an appetite. The video. Oh, you look you look beautiful in that light. Thank you. What a lovely day. Feeling beautiful. That’s cute. You got to do this. Now I’m protected. You’re not protected. You got to do it. God have my back now. Oh, it’s working. Must be the Holy Spirit. My bike is not making noises. Ah, okay. Ah, now I believe. There you go. All right. Here we go again. Yay. We’ve got about 140 km left of this ride. That’s 140 too many. Very nice little lunch stop here in Fatima, but it was on the long side. I’m not sure exactly how long. I think we’ve probably stopped for at least 45 minutes. And that’s a lot of time for calf legs to set in. They feel awful right now. Heat. Heat. Oh man. Yeah. Makes you feel alive though. Yeah. I don’t know whether it would have uh shown on the video, but I hit a horrendous speed wobble coming down there. Yeah, I think I was going almost 80k an hour and the wind just took my front wheel. Woo. That’ll wake you up. Yeah, there’s nothing like a high speed speed wobble to keep you honest. Stop you from thinking you’re pro on the descent. Time to rain it in. There’s a lot of There’s a lot of pain going on here. Yeah. Everyone’s not quite as chipper as they was this morning, including me. Come on. Everyone feeling worse for wear at this point, but that wasn’t holding anyone back. The pace was still high as ever, and with the thought of the finish line drawing closer, the group really started to dig deep. But not before a cheeky little snack stop. Oh, I’m getting ice cream. You know, when you have that feeling like a nice Yeah, I was thinking that. Oo. Caramel. That’s creepy. I’ve definitely messed my fueling up today. I didn’t eat enough at the start, which is a complete rookie error. I started out with good intentions and then uh dropped the ball. Yeah, absolute rookie error that. And yeah, I’ve been playing catchup all day ever since. And now I’m resorting to eating ice cream cuz that’s what it gets you like. Still feel reasonably good though considering but from a tiredness considering we’re 225. Okay. You know feel all right. Cheers David. Delicious. So, trust me, I managed to drop my chain twice in one day. Yeah, I’m currently getting towed back onto the group. Luckily, the uh support car was just behind. So yeah, I lally whacked the chain back on, jumped on the back of the uh support car, and then hopefully I can see him just ahead. So I should be back with a group in a minute. We’re now 265 km in. really feeling it now. I’m an absolute shell of a man and so is everyone else. Everyone’s in tatters. I’m going to hope this jail saves me cuz I’m in a bad way. Here’s David. We was now on the home stretch. These bunch of legends were still pulling like a train and we now had the finish line firmly in our sights. I want to thank each and every one of these guys. What a fantastic crew. every time I ride with them. Although it’s very painful, it’s always an honor. You really will not roll with a more friendlier and welcoming group. Huh? This and that’s it. We can go do some extras if you want. Shall we do some climbing? We We may as well round it up to 400. Great, my man. Thanks, man. Oh, so that was it. We had made it to the finish, ending in the quaint town of Brtach in Alantasia. The people of the town welcomed us with open arms, showing us around their beloved church, and then we all enjoyed a bit of an afterparty at the local social club before loading the bikes and heading back. It was an absolutely incredible day out. I cannot thank the TGV enough for inviting me along and I look forward to our next adventure. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Please go hit that subscribe button and I catch you next time.