Well today was difficult and had the better of my bike, but not me - I will admit there were several moments today where I thought I could be in trouble, but there's always a way.
I set off on what was a good road, fast and gently undulating, once I reached the motorway I would shadow it on the old road until using the back roads running down to the Tagus (Tejo).
As the road approached the Vila Velha de Rodao turn there were big hill ahead and I knew a few climbs were to follow before dropping to the river.
Going up the hill at Cerejal there was an awful smell, like damp foisty clothes get and it was strong and lasted a mile, but I remembered two years ago when cycling through Vila Velha de Rodao, there's a huge paper mill there and I remember back then the whole town had a bad smell.
When I reached Fratel on the old road the road emptied and there was a sign saying dead end in 1km - this would be a big problem, because the only other road nearby was the motorway. As I nervously approached the dead end, there was a small road went across the motorway on a bridge and then ran alongside - i hoped it went somewhere. The road was crazy, going up and down every contour at crazy gradients - my garmin registered 15% uphill and 30% downhill slopes.
After 5 miles on this crazy road, that's when my bike broke, or rather my pannier. The leg which attaches to the back frame had completely sheared ... Big trouble as I was nowhere !
I had lots of cable ties and thought if I put two allen keys each side of the broken leg and tied it sufficiently it might work. 23 cable ties later it was solid as a rock !
Next another sign saying dead end in 2.5 km ... I was getting that sinking feeling, but there was a service statio approaching on the motorway and I hoped the road would at least reach that. Well it went underneath the motorway on a tunnel and I fould myself behind a fence looking at the Service Station. There was a gate but it had a lock on it - then I saw the wheelie Bims my side of the fence in a compound with a gate - this one opened and I was in.
A lunch and a well earned cold drink and the guy in the station reassured me the road connected.
The next 10 miles i had to reach 900ft elevatio then drop down to the river but each time I got near 900ft the road would drop and then come back up at painfil gradients, this repeated at least 5 times. Finally on the drop there were two loose dogs and they ganged up on me - they had seen me coming and 100 yards away the big one came straight at me whilst his mate stayed waiting to pounch on the counter attack. The big dog really came at me and 10 yards away he lurched straight at me from in front of the front wheel, I swerved rapdily and shouted menacingly "Vai" (Go) - keeping the bikes speed up I accelerated past the 2nd dog and could feel them chasing for a good 400 yards but luckily I was faster again and got away.
At the river was a dam at Belver and my plan was to pass it but stay north of the river. My route to get there failed and put me on a mud track which I declined to use and diverted 1 mile up the hill and back down, so when i reached the dam and saw the road going crazily up into the hills again I did something I rarely do - changed my route, on route.
The south side looked a lot flatter and I could see a proper numbered road running close to the river all the way to Abrantes, so i crossed the Dam which was really different. It was huge, holding back the mighty Tagus but the road deck was behind the dam lower down and was made of metal grid through which I was looking straight down at the torrent of water coming out of the dam, it was probably about 30 -50 feet below me but the noise and movement where very very obvious.
Basically after taht the plan new worked - I had 10 miles to Rossio ao Sul de Tejo followed by a final 12.5 miles along to Constantia where as I approached I had to cross two bridges, I turned right to get to the first and another huge Paper mill appeared, just past which we waited almost 5 minutes for the traffic lights to change. The bridge had a railway track on it and only 1 car lane so there were lights either side. When the lights changed we went round a bend and the road gradually narrowe and fed onto the bridge, which was half a mile long ! I went for it full tilt as I needed to clear before the lights changed and after sprinting across I made it just as the first car tried to pull off. I then only had a mile to go past two viewpoints of Constancia ... The other bridge ? Well that crosses the other mighty river here as Constancia is where the Zezere joins the Tejo and the viewpoints looking across the Zezere to the town on almost a peninsular looked great.
I made it despite lots of potential banana skins today and was at my hotel with a good hours daylight left.