Day 83: Tavira (Drive/Cycle)

Tree of the day:

The thing about riding a bike is that the velocipede should not make unnecessary noise, for example: squeaks, rattles, rubbing noises, drive chain noise, brake squeal, etc.

Well, today, shortly after departing I became aware of a new bike noise!

My first thought it was an issue with the indexing of the gears!

After a period of careful listening it became clear that the sound was kind of intermittent in a periodic way.

Intermittent: By this I mean that I could hear the noise when I was making an effort to cycle faster, which meant my cadence was increased (by that I mean an increased rate of pedal/crank rotation) coupled with increased force of rotation. But, in trying to determine the noise source, when I decreased effort and, thus, force and cadence, I could no longer hear the noise. Speed up, and there it was!

Periodic: by this I mean the sound appeared to occur once every revolution of the wheels. And the duration of each noise event was short.

Stopping the bike, and spinning the front wheel there was no intermittent noise; similarly spinning the rear wheel, again no intermittent noise from either the brake or the gears!

I set off again, perhaps the problem is with the bottom bracket (it keeps the spindle of the cranks in place, so they can rotate), maybe it is a bearings issue.

So, I look down at the cranks and lo, the problem is solved.

Tune in tomorrow to find out what was causing the noise and how I made it stop!

Sometimes you have to go down, so that you can go up!

As for the cycle route (another Visit Algarve route), if there hadn't been a long section of cycling on EN-125 - a major road that runs the length of the Algarve from east to west - a good chunk of which was missing the small hard shoulder that it typically has, I'd have given the ride 7/10, as it is I can only give it a 5/10. However, the route could be easily modified to avoid the EN-125.

The cycle route is generally good, it is just the section from Castro Marim back to Tavira that needs to be re-routed to make the whole route good.

Knight, fort and other infrastructure (Castro Marim):

• Distance driven:
• Distance cycled: 94 kilometres
• Weather: Warm, but with a cool breeze, which was appreciated.
• Location: Google Maps

Today's route: