Cycling the Caminho Portugues

[legs_lwhite]

Hi all, I'll be flying into Lisbon on Apr 1st with my trusty touring bike, and heading out onto the way. I'm planning on easy bicycle stages of around 50-60km per day. Still undecided on exact route (central/costal etc). I want to travel light and enjoy the ride, but haven't cycle toured before. I walked the Frances several years ago and found it a great experience mixing solitude with company from pilgrims from around the world.
How well set up is the Portugues for bicgrinos? Any tips from those who have done this already? I'll stick with the walkers route unless the terrain is tough or very remote, where I'll jump onto the local back roads. Anyone have gpx files of routes? Thanks all.

 

[Camembert]

I never biked in Portugal but mind Portuguese are very very kind people but once behind the steeringwheel of their car something different changes in their minds and they drive like mad. So be carefull on national roads there are hardly any bikeroads
Riding from Porto along the coast a significant part goes over wooden boardwalks and you will meet many walkers who are not happy with you biking there

 

[islandwalker]

Have you seen the tracks on Wikiloc? They show elevation changes, have a variety of map layers available for viewing, and often have photos and comments, so it's worth looking at more than one. We've been very happy downloading the GPX files and using the app offline as our GPS when cycling in Spain and Portugal.

There are numerous tracks posted by people who have cycled Lisbon-Santiago. Here are a few:
https://www.wikiloc.com/mountain-biking-trails/camino-de-santiago-portugues-lisboa-santiago-9244274
https://www.wikiloc.com/mountain-biking-trails/camino-portugues-desde-faro-21650835
https://es.wikiloc.com/rutas-mountain-bike/camino-santiago-portugues-desde-lisboa-2013-4889499
The final track above gives links (at the bottom of the comments section) to the seven daily stages he did, thus making the elevation profiles easier to draw conclusions from. He also has videos of the trail showing lots of information about the trail surface. (If you don't read Spanish, Google Translate or opening the page in Chrome for auto translation will help.)

If you want to look for more tracks, you can search by words or on a map from the home page. On the search map, the further you zoom in, the more track symbols that will show up.
Have fun!

 

[Crosscheck]

I rode the Portuguese Camino in September 2016 with two of my friends. We started in Lisbon and rode to SdC via the coastal route north of Porto. We rode 12 days plus two day layovers in Coimbra and Porto. The ride was easy, albergues and hostels were easy to find, and the food was great. The roads could be narrow at times but we did not have problems with cars. I find the drivers in Portugal to be more tolerant towards cyclists than drivers in the USA.

 

[James Morgan]

I biked from Vigo down to Braga in 2017 and enjoyed the country side greatly. There are lots of well-paved back roads. I did hit a pretty busy stretch going into Braga. I did not try biking on the walking trail.
There were lots of little hotels and I mostly booked day to day with airbnb or booking.com.

 

[robproct]

It would a great ride and April should be good cycling weather. In October I walked to CP from Lisbon and came across a few happy cyclists. A detour to Fatima would be easy too. There are stretches in the southern part which is on the highway with lots of big trucks. I also remember endless walking on cobble stones. There are only a couple of sections where you could not take a bike where it is so steep and very rocky.