Æolus Portugal

Æolus is a midwinter journey around Portugal's far south, starting and finishing at Sagres, where Europe runs out into the Atlantic. Its organisers frame it less as a race than as a pilgrimage through wind, water and earth, and at that time of year the weather really does set the terms.

Rather than the resort coast, the route heads into the Algarve's quieter interior. It climbs into the Serra de Monchique, where winter can bring fog, cold and mountain wind, passes Silves, once the Moorish capital of the region the Arabs called Al-Gharb, and runs on through old mining country and the rolling plains of the Baixo Alentejo before turning east towards Andalusia. Expect boggy tracks as well as fast gravel, a river crossing by ferry, possible fords and some walking with the bike.

Æolus belongs to Further, the series founded by cycling photographer Camille McMillan, whose events in the Pyrenees, Scotland and south-west England are known for rough, half-forgotten tracks and a slower, more curious way of riding. In McMillan's telling, the rider who stops to watch a shepherd matters as much as the one who gets there first, and simply finishing counts.