57 miles
Today was a really fun day with some monster climbs. We climbed the Col de Marie Blanque, the Col d'Aubisque, and the Col de Soulor. Of the three, the Col d'Aubisque was the hardest, topping out at 1700m. All of these climbs were part of the Tour de France this year.
We started out in very cold conditions this morning, which was a nice change from the sweltering conditions of two days ago, but nonetheless a bit uncomfortable for the first 5 miles or so until we warmed up. We hit the first climb, the Marie Blanque, a 1000m pass, after about 15 miles of flat warmup. I immediately got dropped, as has been the case on all of the climbs we have done so far. Clearly I'm the slowest climber on the tour, but my revenge is that I am by far the fastest descender ;)
Incidentally, Ron, who is helping crew with Allan, is 71 years old and can rip my legs off. He just rides me right off his wheel whenever he wants. He has been riding for 38 years and still races. (I bet he wins, too).
The Marie Blanque was very steep, and I found myself using my very lowest gear, a gear that I NEVER use at home. Part of this is that the climbing is very steep here, and part of it is that I'm still tired (and not likely to get a lot better any time soon). That being said, I still rode strong today, not like yesterday when I was barely turning the pedals over. I had to remind myself that I was doing great, it's just that the other riders were doing even greater.
The visibility was marginally better today, with minimal fog except at the very summits of the climbs. The roads were also dry, which made for nice descending. However, we still haven't gotten the huge views that we are so hoping for.
I was last to the top of the Marie Blanque, as expected, and it was freezing so I got some food from the van and headed down. The descent off the east side of the Marie Blanque is one of the most enjoyable descents I've ever done. The road surface is perfect (and was mercifully dry) and the turns were big sweepers with occasional little zig-zags to add excitement. The grade was steep enough to keep my speed quite high. By the bottom of the pass I had pulled back all of the other riders and was able to rejoin the group.
We continued on up a valley until we got to the next town, where Ron, Charlie, Allan and I decided to stop for coffee. Craig and Jennie weren't interested and pressed on. We sat on a nice patio in a pretty little town center and sipped our coffee for 15 minutes before heading up to the second pass of the day, the Aubisque.
The Aubisque is a very long climb, topping out at 1700m, and I was promptly dropped by Ron and Charlie about 1/2 mile into the climb. A few miles up, I compounded my problem by getting lost in a little town center and spending an extra five minutes climbing up to the top of a very steep dead end. In all it took me a solid 10 minutes to get back on track.
I felt good and rode well until almost the top where I started to flag a bit, but I was close enough to the summit that it didn't really matter. When I got to the top, the summit was shrouded in fog. Allan was there with the van, and Ron and Charlie were still milling around eating stuff. I opted to get off the pass as fast as possible because it was very cold. After a short descent, there is another short climb to the next pass, the Soulor. This climb is exceedingly minor, maybe 5 minutes of effort. But the conditions were markedly better and I stopped at the van to eat.
At this point we had about 20km, all downhill, left to ride and since it was only about 2pm, Charlie, Ron and I decided to go into the little buvette and get some hot chocolate. When we came back out, we hastily got on down the mountain because our bodies had cooled off and it was again freezing! The descent was once again spectacular, but very short. I don't think it took me more than 7 or 8 minutes to get down. This was really disproportionate to the amount of time spent climbing! Oh well.
Once in town, we fairly quickly found the hotel and I took my bags upstairs. Craig and Jennie had gone into Lourdes, we were told, to sightsee. Charlie decided to go out in search of more hills to conquer, and Ron and I decided to go explore the little town we were in. We ended up visiting a bike shop to repair a minor problem with Ron's bike and then we got some ice cream.
So all in all, a great day so far. The people here are really nice and the hotel has internet!
Here are some pictures from today:
This is on the lower slopes of the Col de Marie Blanque. Note the paint on the road, from the Tour de France, which passed through this year. Of note is the little sign on the right, which is specifically for cyclists, indicating how far it is to the summit, what the local elevation is, what the summit elevation is, and how steep the next few kilometers will be. Everything a cyclist wants to know!
Here is a church right across the street from the bar where we stopped for coffee. I also visited an ATM in this town. It was very nice. (The town, not the ATM).
Here's a rather imposing peak emerging from the clouds on the ascent of the Aubisque. I was at 1300m and the peak was 2600m Pic de Ger (I think). The clouds came and went, so a few minutes later you couldn't see it anymore. There were ski lifts and cable cars up there, so maybe you can get a ride to the top, I don't know. Incidentally, it wasn't really that dark there, but I had to take the exposure off the bright clouds, otherwise the mountain wouldn't show up.
Victory! Here's me at the top of the Aubisque. The photo was taken by a random cyclist of unknown nationality. I spoke French to him but he just kind of grunted and used sign language in return. Some things are just understood no matter the language: every cyclist wants their picture taken to document their achievement! I showed him my camera and he knew exactly what to do.
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