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	A light and cold rain was falling down at Tobagan. Photo: Aman Morbeck
	A small church at Roque neighborhood. Photo: Aman Morbeck

Riding a bike is my favorite physical activity. I have done this since the beginning of the 1990's, being very fond of mountain bikes. I have had a few Trek and nowadays my "baby" is a Gary Fisher – blue and silver Tassajara – that I fell in love with almost two years ago. Here in Sao Paulo city I have two friends with whom I usually go out of the city for the hilly itineraries. Last weekend I went with one of them to Salesopolis. We chose this itinerary from the Guia de Trilhas enCICLOpedia volume 6 by Gui Cavallari (www.kalapalo.com.br).

This small town in Sao Paulo state is 121 km away from the capital. There, we parked our car by the main church, put the bikes down and without noticing it I hit the wheel of mine against the curb, which caused it a problem. Fortunately there was a bike shop open two blocks away, where it was fixed a few minutes later.

The weather forecast predicted rain but we decided to face that anyway. It was very cloudy but we had raincoats. In the first 20 km we met some cars and trucks loaded with eucalyptus logs.
The landscape changes from rock mounts to native vegetation to reforestation with eucalyptus and, the most beautiful part, to the view of the reservoir. On a sunny day, one can easily get to the water to swim but for us there was this light rain for 18 km. In the beginning I thought I would not need to wear my raincoat but after a while my body temperature was unable to compensate the external cold. The relief is not too rugged and there are lots of downhill.

After my friends insisting that I should change the platform pedals I decided to give it another try. I had done that before and fell off the bike a few times, which had made me very resistant to do that again. This time I decided to have a pedal that is platform on one side and has the mechanism on the other. I tried them in this ride and it was great. When I had to go uphill, I inserted the cleats and could realize how that improved my performance. When I needed to be ready to put my foot on the ground – for instance, on the streets or when there was a dog in the road – I freed them and used the platform. It was perfect! I did not fall off once and biked more efficiently.

On a sunny day there is no much shadow on this road. Around the reservoir there were several people camping. When we got to a place called Aterrado, there were lots of fishers by the reservoir. From this point it starts the most difficult part of the ride: the 4 km uphill back to the town. My advice is that you save some energy for this. There is more car traffic too, which requires your attention especially on the curves. In the end it took us 4 hours and 25 minutes to do it all, including the time for pictures and snacks.

In town we put our bikes back on top of the car and looked for a place to eat. After having sandwiches and orange juice in a snack bar we drove to Senzala restaurant (that closes on Sundays). In this place there is a large 230-year-old building that was built by slaves. It is worthy of being visited.

This is an excellent bike itinerary that I do recommend even for beginners because there is no technical challenges, there is natural beauty to make the ride more enjoyable, and if the last 4 km is too hard for you, get off the bike and push it uphill. At last, at this point you will have already biked 33 km using your muscles strength.