Aurora Gravel Portugal

Aurora Portugal is a gravel stage race run in rally style: only part of each day is timed, roughly two fifths of the distance, and the links between the timed sectors are ridden at your own pace on a GPX track. The name means sunrise, and the biggest stage of the week rolls out before dawn.

The week is built around the western Algarve. The opening prologue is raced flat out on the rally-car track at the Portimão circuit, then the stages head inland to the cooler Monchique hills with their eucalyptus forests and views to the Atlantic, and out to the Costa Vicentina with its dark cliffs, dunes and pine woods, passing whitewashed villages with cobbled lanes along the way.

Behind it is a Swiss event agency that also runs Aurora rounds in Cyprus and Switzerland, working here with local partner Paradise Cycling. It is an all-inclusive format: riders sleep and eat at the race hotel, and evenings are spent celebrating the day with the people you rode with.