The Bikes of ACT Portugal 2025

A quick tour of the bikes we’re riding ACT Portugal on, from big to small, merit in them all.

Okay, struggling to upload videos at the minute, but a quick little update from day three. ACT Portugal. We’ve had some long hot trails today. Some really good trails, some technical trails actually, you know, to say it’s big bike friendly. Uh, only if you’re a good rider. There was a trail in particular I ducked out of. I thought, “No, I don’t fancy it.” So, yeah, big bike friendly if you’re good. But if you’re not good, take some smaller, I would argue. So we had quite a few voes. Those guys um Manuel and his friends, they’re Portuguese guys who sort of shadowed us a little bit behind us. So the Voge 300s have done really well. Rob’s 310s with a rally kit is struggling a bit. He’s got clutch issues. He got a recluse clutch and it’s slipping. So he’s he’s taking to the road. Matt CRF, he’s doing well on that but tired this afternoon. So, we ducked out the trails. There’s did a few of us. Uh, we’ve got Triggs 790 Adventure. He seems to be doing well on that. Had little drops there on the difficult trail. As you say, there’s some tricky trails in it. You know, lots of long flowing stuff with some climbs and some descents which are manageable, you know, interesting interesting but not neck breaking. And then we came across a trail and there’s another one later which were yeah, proper steep climbs. So, just bear that in mind uh when you’re thinking about your bike choice. Nick’s Fantic Cabalero. He’s doing really well on that as is. Yeah, cheers. Thanks, mate. Appreciate that. Thank you. Enjoy. Talking about bikes. Doing well, ain’t it, Nick? This one. Yeah. Uh Tony’s XT, what are they? 660s. He’s doing well on that. He says he just puts it in second and plots through. So, he’s doing well. The gang of him. So, we got a group. Uh we’ve got one, two, three him 450s and then Craig on his CF Moto 450 MT there riding as a pack. So that’s really good to see Craig’s come on a lot. He’s his confidence is growing. And the Him is a good bike for this. You know, I will say as is a CF Moto. The Voj 800 which I am on. Let me come around the other side so we can see better for the sun. Uh the V800. Yeah, it is a big bike. Look, this is this is kind of, you know, act um market bike, big adventure, large capacity adventure bike. I’m not I’m not struggling on it, but it’s keeping me on me toes. And there’s times when you’d wish for a little bit less weight. Uh so that’s why, you know, coming back to it, if you’re coming down to do any of the these act tracks, if you’re a good rider, you can do them on a bigger bike, but if you’re just, you know, novice to intermediate, I definitely would recommend one of the smaller ones. We got Mike on the 411. He’s doing really well on that. You know, he’s good, strong rider. Mike, for him, that’s all the bike you’ll ever need. Matt on his brand new CRF. Had not had a oil change or anything. He’s just bought it from showroom and come and ridden it on this with a Lommo bag on the back. So, he’s he’s enjoying that. We got a second CRF. Uh that’s Alex’s. He’s got some nice creek luggage on that. Again, great bike for this trip. And then Julian who’s who’s my second rider. He’s on his 7 890 KTM Adventure. So a good mix of bikes and it’s really interesting riding them all back to not back to back but you know alongside each other just to see how people are getting on. Um you know for me I I I specified with this trip for people to be on 700cc and less. And I’m glad I did. I don’t think I would want people with, you know, low to moderate levels of skill bringing big bikes because it could easily go very wrong. There’s a lot of gravel. There’s some, like I say, some steep rocky descents and climbs. If you unless you know what you’re doing, you could get in a lot of trouble. So, small bikes uh are definitely an advantage. So, we’re just at Alamal um River Club. This is where we’re staying. So, it’s a great little u river beach. Beautiful spot. Castle up there and then we’re staying just in this building here. So, nice end to day three, day four and five to come. Uh I It’s a challenge. It’s challenge because of the distances and the consistent off-road terrain. You do a bit of road but maybe for 10 minutes or so sometimes and then you’re back on the trail for you know an hour or so. So, uh high levels of attrition, you get fatigue. It’s hot 35 degrees and uh yeah yeah yeah it’s it’s proper proper adventure. So we’ll get to Algav in a couple of days and then we’re going to make the long journey back to Santandere for the ferry at which point the bigger bikes make more sense. So yeah depends what you want where you want to compromise. Do you want to compromise on the trails or compromise on the road? But uh yeah I’ve enjoying the DS 800. It’s a capable bike. I don’t think it’s as capable as a 10 or something like that, but what it makes up for uh is on the road. I think it’s a it’s a great road travel bike. Tubless spoke rims, 24 liter tank, good hard luggage, and it’s a nice manageable seat height 850 and the weight is carried low. So, it’s a big bike, but it carries it it well. Uh good screen on it and good tank range. So on the way back I’ll be glad I’m on it. But on the trails something like CF the CF motor. Somebody just sent me said which of these bikes would you take if you had a choice? Well it would be that one. It would be that one. Maybe not with a big screen but that’s a that’s the one I like as the best compromise for trail ability and roadability. That would be my pick. Right. Cheers. Everybody.