Anyone considering biking in Portugal, there’s an essential tool you must have and that’s the National Cycling Network guidebook, which maps out nearly 5,000 km of routes and includes GPS tracks in KML and GPX file formats, so you can follow the routes on your smartphone. As well, the guide has great photography and descriptions, so you have a really good idea of what your trip will entail before you begin.
The author, Paulo Guerra dos Santos, is an engineer specializing in road project design, so this is right up his alley. This was a huge project and he undertook it basically all on his own. I was fortunate to have some participation in the guide, as after purchasing the English version I quickly realized that his text could use some copy editing. I contacted Paulo and offered my services, for free, and he took me up on it. Worked out very well for me, as it has forced me to get to know Portugal’s biking pathways from north to south, east to west. I feel I now have a good understanding of the terrain and what to expect. I’m more than ready to begin and plan to start biking Portugal sometime this fall.
