The rain had started on Thursday at around 2pm and had continued throughout the rest of the day, evening and night. So at first light today we peered around the curtains to see if the contingency plan was going to work! A grey start but no rain – so far so good.
We met for breakfast at 8am – best breakfasts so far on tour at the hotel in Pau. Everyone was a little quiet – lots of nervous tension for the ride today – big climb to the top of the Col d’Aubisque, a first for Hadlow bikers.
We were ready to leave at 9.30am for a 30km drive to our start point for the climb. Again, lots of nervous tension among the group with watering places all around the car park! A nice 10km ride to Laruns at the base of the climb – an excellent way to warm the legs.
At Laruns the climb started – 16.6kms with a total climb of 3,600ft at an average gradient of 7.2%. For non cyclists, you'd probably question our mental wellbeing at this point. The first few kilometres were easy enough to the spa resort of Eaux-Bonnes with only a small heard of cows threatening our progress. The team had already split into 2 groups – Nick and Lyn in front and Neil, Chris and Mike a few hundred yards back.
At Eaux-Bonnes, we had a young lad race past us – there was an immediate call to action to follow him and he guided us up to a short cut (a one way street!!) to a left turn and the start of a tougher section of the ride with a maximum gradient of 13%.
In the next section, we passed through a number of avalanche tunnels, a sharp reminder that this was a high climb and cascading waterfalls reminded us that there is alot of snow in the mountains that’s melting fast! We passed through the ski resort of Gourette – very strange on a bike but even stranger when there is not one person in the resort (they are between winter and summer seasons) – kinda spooky.
From Gourette it was uphill funnily enough for another 1000ft and at this point we entered low cloud and our vision reduced to probably no more than 20yrds. Really tough last part of the ride but reach the top we did – a top effort in difficult riding conditions.
After the obligatory pictures and general back slapping for our achievement we started the decent – OMG it was absolutely freezing. Mike resorted to using his overshoes as additional gloves and after 1000ft we stopped off at the church at Gourette to warm up.
As soon as we came out of the clouds the temperatures improved and the rest of the descent was good fun at decent speeds and with some scary hairpin bends.
We stopped off for some hot chocolate and pastries in Eaux-Bonnes and then completed the remaining 18kms to the finish of the final ride of the tour.
A great finish to the tour today – Sir Bradley Wiggins did this ride as part of his Tour De France win in 2012 and today we followed his wheels to the top of the Col d’Aubisque, albeit in a marginally slower time!!
Motor racing in Pau tomorrow, then a drive to Bilboa and some rest and recuperation time on our cruise back to Portsmouth – I’m sure we will fit a few beers in!
That’s our final blog for this trip. Hope you enjoyed having a gander through it. Over 800 page reviews so far suggests that there was some content of interest.
Au Reviour.
Chris, Nick, Neil, Mike and Lyn
At the start:
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| The bikes are ready for the off but where are the riders: haveing a last wee wee !! |
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| Start point for the ride - 31kms from the top of Col d'Aubisque |
On the way up:
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| Cows in the road on the road up from Laruns |
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| The start of our climb - d'Aubisque open but route to Col du Solour closed due to snow avalanches |
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| Profile of Col d'Aubisque climb |
At the top:
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| We did it!! - Col d'Aubisque conquered!! |
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| Mike at the finish of the climb |
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| Lost for words (and breath)! |
On the way down:
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| Nick in confession |
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| Mike's new gloves - his overshoes |
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| The church in the ski resort of Gourette where we warmed up |
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| Chris's cycling sermon |
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| The church at Gourette |
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| Will it catch on - Nick showing off upside down cycling |
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| Our stop at Eaux-Bonnes for hot chocolate and patries |
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| Beers before dinner with Mike in his familiar position! |
