Trans Madeira

Scotty Laughland just has and is posting videos...

Jonno Jones did a heap of vids there this year too. It looked absolutely brilliant to be fair.

Even if you don't get to do the race, Madeira has got some absolutely amazing trails.  I went with Freeride Madeira (who  also maintain the trails) and had a brilliant time - highly recommended!!

The island itself is beautiful and fairly small.  Well worth having a "rest" day so you can do some touristing.

I 'Raced' Trans Madeira in September 2021 I think it was.

The organisation and logistics of the camping, food, showers, beer and getting to the trails is simply incredible.

I would consider what you want from the trip. Although it's shuttle assisted, it's still 5 days of early alarms, long days out and a surprising amount of pedalling between stages. Day 3 you literally carry your bike up and over a mountain. I would not have wanted to have been less fit going in. I'm not sure I would do the race again, but I'm certainly eyeing up a trip back there and just shuttling with Freeride Madeira. The perk there being you can easily drive to the part of the island to match your riding style and the best weather. I still shudder thinking about the carnage of having to ride some of the tracks in the 'wrong' conditions, it was truly brutal and being honest I couldn't enjoy the first few days of the race due to the conditions. Don't get me wrong some riders were able to ride and enjoy it, but most were surviving.

The actual riding is like nothing else. But what the videos do not truly show is just how hard it is to ride on the Madeira mud when it's had a little rain on it. It changes as you move across the island, but especially the first 2 days, some trails are so steep that it was more about survival than racing those for me.

If you've got any specific questions, just let me know.

I'd go and just book a few days of uplifts and some nice evenings in funcal so you mix the right amount of fun and pleasure

Thanks @malvscruzzin, that's exactly the sort of feedback I was after.

I've seen a good few videos on youtube but it is still tough to tell just how hard it is and how tough it is doing day after day while sleeping in a tent too.

I think as Joefm says, we might be better off with a riding holiday with some more time for relaxing, food, beer and a hotel bed.

10 (!) of us are going with FreeRide Madeira next year. Looks a great setup and  a fantastic place to ride. I've ridden load of places, but really looking forward to this one.  I watched those videos before booking and loved the look of the trails/local culture but was definitely not interested in racing!

I've just done a week in Madeira and I'd 110% recommend riding there, trails were off the scale but I wouldn't fancy sleeping in a tent on the beach after a long days riding, especially if it rained which it did a fair bit by the look of the Instagram vids I saw of the last Trans Madeira

I did it last May (Age 55). It was the first multi day event I've done.  They're fairly tough long days, you'd want to be reasonably fit, I spent a fair bit of time in the Gym before hand just on Cardio. In a nutshell, it's 5 days biking, 7 downhill stages a day, stages about 8-12 mins long for mere mortals, about 1600 mtrs climbing a day, the wednesday has 2,400 mtrs of climbing including a 1hr hike a bike up a steep walking trail. Nothing too technical on the stages but some fairly full on steep rock gardens, any big jumps are taped off. 4 nights of  camping in small tents can be a challenge especially if it's  wet. Early starts, up at 7-8 am for food. Weather is normally mixed (can be cold, wet and mucky, not slow down sticky mud, more slippy like ice mud). Organisation is great, food is great, trails are great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Would I do it again? no, but glad I did it once. Lot's of people were on their 4th, 5th in a row. There's a good vibe to the event, nobody taking it TOO seriously from a racing perspective. While there was a small group having beers each night most were on 1-2 beers and bed by 10pm. I'd recommend doing it if that sounds appealing.

I'm back in March 2024 for a week of uplifts with Freeride.

Great feedback, thanks @feed.

I did 3 days with Freeride in June 2022, what has been said about the slippy mud is true.  They call it "Madeira Ice" and it deserves that name.

I enjoyed those days so much I'm planning on doing the Trans-Madeira in September in 2024 if I can get in.  Already planning the training.

Raced it in May this year. Superb event as others have said, but it's hard on the body, and blind racing is not for everyone. Most of the trails are not too hard technically, but being a race you're obviously meant to go fast, which increases the difficultly. A couple of the trails are particularly savage if its wet.

A good training block is important to really do it justice, otherwise its survival mode, probably from quite early on in the week.

I'll be going racing there again at some point.

Direct flights from MAN to Funchal are ridiculously expensive but about half the cost if you bounce through Porto or Lisbon and stop over for a couple of nights. You should be able to get at least one nights hotel accommodation in Porto/Lisbon based on the saving. Bolt taxi service is also incredibly cheap in Porto. In fact everything is cheap!

I did it in May last year. As others have said,  it is a tough, but very rewarding and highly enjoyable week.

I was up at 6 each day - you're on the bus by about 8. They are long days, and it doesn't feel like you get that much time to chill or rest. I think I got back after 6 pm on the 3rd day, as a faster descender I was one of the last to set off, but I'm also pretty slow on the climbs.

The year I did it it was around 900-1000M climbing each day, apart from the 3rd day which was just under 1680M. There was around 2700-3100M descent each day. So, imagine doing a decent size pedal up type ride, and a u.k uplift day's worth of descent at race pace. For 5 days on the trot and you're somewhere near.

TBH it wasn't as tough as I'd expected, I was still getting used to riding with a fairly recently aquired arrythmia and I just tried to ride 3 or 4 times a week rather than the usual 2 times, often doing Thursday evening, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get into the swing of riding consecutive days. This seemed to be pretty good prep, but I should probably have spent some time in the gym and done some intervals too.

The trails aren't mega technical, but the packed mud 'Madeira ice' is definitely a bit sketchy at times.  I didn't find the trails steep, but I ride S. Wales valleys quite a bit so maybe don't listen to me....

The trails are a lot of fun, and you should do well if you're good at carrying speed through corners - a lot of the corners exit running across the hill/have flat exits, so a botched attempt requires pedalling to get back to race speed.

The logistics of it is quite something - and the team do an amazing job of looking after you and making it a fun week.

I'll be going back for sure, amazing week.

I guess it depends on your general fitness and expectations, but I say go for it!