Into The Pyrenees

The road trip continues! After a nice breakfast at the hotel in Orange, I headed for the Pyrenees mountains on the France-Spain border.

On the way there, I was going to be very close to Millau, France. Millau is where the incredible Millau Viaduct Bridge is located. I have heard of this bridge ever since it was under construction and I am going to see it first hand. It is supposed to be the highest bridge in the world, so high that there are photos of the bridge deck above the clouds. Not so today. There isn’t a cloud in the sky.

After seeing it, I was not disappointed. It really is a true engineering marvel. There is a visitor center for the bridge which I stopped at. The seven towers are amazing and cannot be adequately photographed to show how really tall they are. But when you drive across it and see the valley floor so far below you, then you truly get the sense of scale and how high it is. Wow.

Continuing, I drove through some more nice french countryside going through Nimes, Mende, Rodez, enjoying rush hour traffic in Toulouse, and finally to St. Gaudens where I found a hotel to stay at.

I ate a big breakfast since it was going to be another day of cycling in the mountains. Today, I would drive through Tarbes and Lourdres on the way to Luz St. Sauveur and the base of the Col du Tourmalet.

The Col du Tourmalet is a common climb in the Tour de France and will again be climbed in this years tour. This year, it is a summit finish so there will be lots of action for the 100,000’s of spectators who will line the roadway to watch. People will be camping for days to get a good spot.

I was a little nervous about the ride today. Normally, I have tried to ride these famous climbs during the week to avoid weekend traffic, but today is a Saturday. Driving up the valley, there were a lot of cyclists, but there was an awful lot of car traffic on the narrow winding road to Luz St. Sauveur. Luckily, I found that most of the traffic stopped in town and the road to the Col was pretty lightly traveled, unless that is that you are on a bicycle! There were lots of people riding today!

I parked in the parking lot for the Carrefour market and started from there. It was 11:30 and starting to warm up, but at least it wasn’t the absolute hottest part of the day. The ride is 19km and climbs 4,605 feet to the summit. The gradient is in the 8-9% range with a few easier portions mixed in, but then with the final kilometers pitching up to 10-11%. Hey, after Mont Ventoux, this sounds pretty easy, haha.

The ride actually went pretty good today. I seemed to have recovered from Mont Ventoux and I passed a lot of riders, some of whom had no business being there. Lots of people walking their bikes who were wearing tennis shoes. One of these groups of riders were wearing jerseys that said “Lead From The Back”. They really took that to heart!

The beginning of the ride had some forest and some shade if you hugged the shoulder of the road, but after just a few kilometers, the road opened into high meadows and fully exposed to the sun. Unlike some of the other climbs, you could not see the summit as you climbed. At some point I knew that I was getting near the top, or I hoped I was because the gradient was getting steeper. After an hour and 45 minutes, I made the summit. I actually felt pretty good! And what a party going on at the top. Riders from all nations were there and lots of them. French, Swiss, Spanish, British, and at least one American!

I didn’t stay very long at the top. Just long enough to talk to some British guys (Nice to talk some english for a change) and take a few photos of the summit and the valley below.

The descent was pretty fun. It had some long straight stretches so you could let the bike go and see where you were going, not worrying about hairpin curves. But there was one part of the descent that got my attention.

I was able to successfully negotiate my way through this group of cattle without incident, but mindful of Matt C’s bad experience where he got his bike “stomped” on by a mean cow! French cows seem nice….

Once down in Luz St. Sauveur again, I got some lunch and decide to do some exploring. I kind of had it in the back of my mind to ride some more, but wasn’t really sold on the idea. There are lots of climbs in the area. The Hautacam, Col de Aspin, Col de Plat d”Edat. I saw a sign for the Luz Ardiden. It started right in Luz St. Sauveur so I drove to the top to scout it out.

At the top and seeing the “classic” switchback road I decided I had to try it. Plus, it wasn’t like I was going to be coming back anytime soon. It would be a “short” 13km and 3264 feet of climbing. The road gradient had lots of 9%, but some 6-7% too that would give my legs a little bit of a break. And they needed it too.

The bottom part of the climb had some shade which was good since it was 4:00 and it was now pretty hot. I did not climb it very fast, but steady enough to get to the top, although it took an hour and twenty minutes. The switchbacks were great since it gave you something to look forward to in the mist of suffering up the climb.

On the descent, I counted the switchbacks. They make a big deal of the 21 hairpin turns on the Alps d”Huez, but this had no less than 30 hairpin corners and 14 in the last 4 km before the summit alone. A pretty fun ride, although I continued to descend like the “married man” (which always strikes me as ironic).

It was a great trip to the Pyrenees and to see more of the great climbs of the Tour de France. With the Col du Tourmalet and Luz Ardiden accomplished, I am now headed back to Chambery. These are the last of the climbs that I really had my heart set on. I am sure that there will more , but after this, they will just be icing on the cake as they say.