Falkirk Grand Fondo completed and I’m quite pleased with the time The wind today was a real pain in the arse had it all the way to Fintry and then again going to Slamannan and past it and the spots of rain didn’t help either I was cycling without any wet gear since the weather was supposed to be fine. I was having to pedal hard to try and keep my target of 15 mph and I only just made it but given we were going over 6000 feet of hills I can’t complain
Ride 29/09/2018
Decided to the do the slightly slower 09:00 club ride this morning since I’m doing the Granfrodo sportive tomorrow in Falkirk. It’s an 80 miles ride tomorrow against the same crazy wind I had today so looking to keep some energy for tomorrow
This mornings club run and they were going a fair rate of knots :-o
Pictures taken in Collioure where we finished our ride.
Well it’s the last day of the ride and I’ve made it I’m at the end of another years charity bike ride and it’s flown by as usual. This has certainly been the hardest ride I’ve ever done and I’m certainly feeling it in my legs But today was also the first day that I’ve felt more like myself so I was flying along this morning. So today’s ride was 50 miles and only 1 cat 2 Col to climb and I went up it fairly quickly After that it was a steady downhill ride to the coast some 30 miles ahead and I flew along those as well. We got to the end by lunch time with a quick photo and some champagne by the beach and it was onto the hotel.
It’s another stupid hard day again but this time we have good weather It was sunny from the stat but the first mountain HC cat (Col de Pailheres) was a kick to the head, it was right outside the Hotel door I didn’t get a chance to warm up it was straight into a climb Anyway I was feeling ok today, still sore, and probably will be for the next few days, but I was going quite hard today so got to the top without incident and felt ok The next 2 Cat 2 climbs, Col des Moulis and Col du Garabeil, were easy and I mean really easy they were very short climbs with a low gradient about 2 km for one and 4 km for the second so I got up them very quickly and had lunch at the top. The last climb of the day Col de Jau is a cat 1 mountain and was much harder and longer but the best bit about it was the 18 miles downhill section off it Since the weather was good I got some great pictures and since tomorrow is the last day these are the last of the big Cols, tomorrows only cat 2 Col is Col des Caixas
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
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
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
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
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
Time to get in the last minute cycling before I leave for France this weekend.