Santa Barbara Downhill

Great way to see the beauty of the Azores. Descending a mountain. Not a lengthy ride but pleasant way to immerse yourself in nature. Stop at the cheese factory was enjoyable.

The description of this tour should be: “Road Bike Downhill on a mountain bike - someone drops you off with mountain bikes at the top of a hill, and you follow the guide who drives in a car in front of you on the road.” For what it was, we had fun. But this is not mountain biking, and there is no tour guide. If the description was accurate we would give a higher review. The guide was nice to us, but his only purpose was transportation up the hill with the bikes. He drove in the car in front of us as we coasted down a very scenic hill with wonderful views. The guide took pictures for us as we stopped occasionally. We road next to goats and cows, and took back roads all the way down to our hotel. The guide was native to the island, and was nice but did not talk much. The “cheese factory” was a small store that sold cheese on the side of the road. We sampled 4 cheeses in plastic bins near the entrance, then we ate a platter of a cheese selected for us. The staff at this store did not acknowledge we were there at all. We would be perfectly fine skipping this part of the tour. We made it down the hill all the way back to our hotel, which was pretty cool. The last few miles were not downhill and required some up hill next to cars, but it wasn’t too bad.