Pyrenees Day 5

Well it’s another tough day in the Pyrenees and it started with cloud and rain We had a cat 1 climb (Col d’Agnes) and a cat 2 climb (Col de Port), the cat 1 climb being quite hard as it was 8% avg and 7 miles long, thankfully the rain stopped before we got to the base of the Col The cat 2 climb was a far nicer climb with an avg gradient of 5% but it was a mile longer than the first at 8 miles. By the time I got to the top of Col de Port it was still cloudy but clearing up and we had a flat piece of road to the hotel tonight which was nice and sunny when we arrived Tomorrow is another very hard day with a cat HC (stupid hard) mountain Col de Pailheres to climb but it’s the last of the hard days as day 7 is only 40 miles to the coast

Pyrenees Day 4

Well it’s day 4 and thankfully it’s an easyish day, only 2 Cols to ascend Col des Ares and Col de Portet d’Aspect and they weren’t massive mountains to climb. It was our first day of rain but it didn’t last too long, as we were having lunch at the time, and once lunch was over it was light rain for a couple of miles and then it stopped. Due to the weather I haven’t taken many pictures today. Things kick up a gear tomorrow but I’ll worry about that then

Pyrenees Day 3

WOW! what a crazy hard day it was, 3 Cols conquered Col du Tourmalet, Col D’Aspin, Col de Peyresourde and over 14,000 feet ascended I’m very tired and sore as it was a 10 hour day but we had great weather so some stunning pictures but I’ll put them up tomorrow as I so need to sleep now. The hardest day is by and tomorrow is an “easler day” before it kicks back into crazy climbs on days 5 and 6

Pyrenees Day 2

So it’s Pyrenees Day 2 and another tough one but thankfully not as bad as yesterday. Yes we had bigger harder climbs today but energy wise I was better off. So we were climbing the Col de Marie Blanque and the
Col D’Aubisque. The first Col was a tough one as it’s steeper than the second but the D’Aubisque is a higher and longer climb. It’s quite a grind up the Col de Marie Blanque with sections of 13% but the D’Aubisque is less steep but again because it’s longer you just have to keep pedalling on and on But once you are on top of D’Aubisque it’s all down hill to the hotel and a very nice decent it was. Tomorrow is the toughest day up the Col du Tourmalet so lets hope I survive that one Again I got an elevation record today which will be broken again tomorrow but I’m not complaining

Pyrenees Day 1

Well I know I wanted a challenging ride but OMG this is only day 1 and the easiest of the days and I’m knackered :-O. I achieved a new elevation record for doing the 7500 feet of climbing beating my previous record set in Jordan. But I’m going to have to come up with a new strategy as I came very close to running out of energy near the end of this ride. It’s time to go hard core on the calories but the irony is I only used around 3000 but I feel like I did twice that Anyway we have 2 cat 1 climbs (HARD) tomorrow but thank god the distance is only 60 miles hopefully things will go a bit better cos it’s only getting harder each day