A dirty weekend in Portugal

Welcome to the long awaited first ’propa’ ride of our first Kingdom Bike Project frame the Legion.

The right tool for the job.

To ensure we could handle anything Lagos could throw at us we turned the Legion into a all mountain beast with some battered old Fox 36’s we used for 4x dropped to 120mm, a Straightline 35mm stem, mutant LG1 chainguide and single 32T ring, 2.35 High Rollers and Nuke Proof flats. Total weight 26.7lbs. Tidy boyo.

We contacted The Mountain Bike Adventure who kindly volunteered to guide us on a whistle stop tour of Portugal’s finest trails and a few bars as well. Over 3 days, we sampled everything on the ‘a la carte’ Lagos trail menu and as a bonus we also got to test Legion in a variety of ’Biblical’ weather conditions, everything from hurricanes and hail to flash floods and lightening.

OK we know your online attention span is short, finger trigger itching to click somewhere better, so lets get down to business....

Doors to manual. Day one.

Lets start with 'the heart of darkness' or cross country. Jim led us out on a 45km coastal XC ride starting right from the heart of Lagos, beautiful sweeping sea views combined with short sharp climbs and fast flowing descents.

Legion handled like a old pro right out the gate.The short chainstays and stiff rear end made acceleration and power transfer super direct. Even the ’short ’n’ heavy’ set up couldn't restrict the bikes 'uphill first' mentality.

Descending was smooth and planted BUT a bit too solid. The 200% stiffer than aluminium properties of titanium soon came out and there was very little flex in the rear and this became noticeable when we got tired and planted the odd lazy landing into a brace of rocks. This bike demands your attention, production models will have thinner butted seat and chainstays.

An all mountain affair. Day two.

Into the storm. The trails became reminiscent of the Lake District or Scotland only muddier and with a headwind strong enough to challenge the most adventurous of kite flying professionals. Not what we expected from the Algarve.

Immediately the high bottom bracket came into it’s own dancing over head sized rockstacles, with the relaxed head angle and short stem combo making the steep techy bits of the trail easy, too easy in fact giving you a bit too much confidence for a hardtail.

By now the mud was starting to be a menace with drifting and general sideways action the order of the day, this is where a hardtail with ample mud clearance is a pleasure.

Picota.

Lastly on day 3, we decided to get our gnar on and take on some downhill trails. This would push the Legions handling to it’s limits and to be fair beyond what we designed the frame for.

There are DH tracks are all over the southern Serra mountain range of Portugal but the most savage is on Picota. This track has a very high 'mutha hucka' rating with huge rock gardens, hideously techinal sections and assorted sized jumps to flat. Locals regularily run their downhill races here.

We took on as many runs as we could in the torrential rain and hypothermia stopped play. On the last run we took on the biggest 6ft drop to flat, encouraged by the bikes handling and the zero visibility downpour which took us on the wrong line and off the drop. Legion landed the drop shaken but not stirred and in good humour.

No bike trip is ever complete without an impromptu, beered up late-night street riding session over the local tourist attractions. Anyone in the know will tell you this is the real test of a mountain bike, handling street obstacles and tourists without exposing your low skill levels, returning you safely back to the bar and onwards to bed.

Legion performed as well as we could have imagined, if not better. There are improvements we’ll make on the production frames, thinner gauge butted chainstays, adjusting the gusset, maybe a bit more slope on the top tube. Fly fucking really as we came away happy with our do-it-all frame concept.

Don't believe us! Then 'request a test' and review Legion for yourself.

There's more than enough XC, all mountain and downhill trails all around Lagos to fill a week but it would be next to impossible to find them on your own, so we really recommend using a guides local knowledge if you fancy taking a jaunt to Portugal. Click to check out The Mountain Bike Adventure and learn all about Portugal yourself. We are also advised that the weather is usually warm all year round.