At the begining of June this year I was in the Pyranees because of a Statoil geology. Decided to take a extra day to ride day 16 of the tour. I stayed 2 nights at a cycle "hotel" called Pyractif, a small hostel with fanatastic food run by an English couple, Chris and Helen Balfour. The place was great and good value for money and I really recommend it.
http://www.pyractif.com/I was planning to ride alone, but it tourned out 4 other riders without specific plans wanted to join me. They paid for full van support over the ride. Which turned out to be shear luxury. The van carried food, extra bottles and clothes. We were mixed abilities and it turned out 2 were faster and 2 were slower than me. We rode over the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and the Solor, but had to leave the Aubisque out due to lack of time. Didn't ride down to Pau, but instead turned and rode back to Argeles-Gazost as it was closer to the cycle hostel. The Tourmalet from St.Marie de Campan was the toughest as shown by KE above. It's very similar to Fanafjell in steepness and the fact that there are no breaks in the gradient al the way up. Only difference is it goes on a bit longer than Fanafjell.They have km signs all the way up , which really helps mentally as you feel you are making progress.
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I therefore claim:
- Col de Peyresourde (1569m)
- Col d'Aspin (1489m)
- Col du Tourmalet (2115m)
- Col du Soulor (1474m)
While in England the last couple of weeks I rode:
- One hour test ride in the Manchester Velodrome. This is the UKs primary velodrome and the home of the GB national squad. With pictures plastering the walls of stars like Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish ridingg and earning medals it is a hallowed place. The track was a classic wooden 250m indoor circuit. The track hire bikes were like stripped down road bikes with single gear fixed wheel roughly 53 14 ration (stop pedalling and you get thrown over the handlebars), and no brakes. Riding the banked curves took a bit of getting used to, but I soon figured out how to use them and how to ride in a group and use the banking to swap front position. Loads of fun and a good work out. We need one of these in Bergen for the winter instead of spinning. For the record I managed a km in 1:22 alone. Not so fast, but the fastest of the taster session guys I was with (mostly middle aged businessmen who hadn't been on a bike for 30 years).
- Also rode a 100 mile UK charity sportive last weekend in BTC colours with my brother (Cheshire plains and peaks). This was a ride in Cheshire and up into the peak district which is rolling hilly country. It was a great scenic ride and overall was similar in difficulty (perhaps a bit harder) than Bergen Voss. 1800m climbing meters and 6 hours 40 mins ride including 3 food station breaks.
- Took out my Brothers brand new Felt B12 (?) TT cycle (equipped with DA groupset and Zipp 404/808 wheels) (same as Trond's I think) for a ride around the countryside near his home in the Cotswolds. Rode past Jeremy Clarksons house in Chipping Norton (but didn't see him of course). Great experience and made me realise what I'm missing. It was fast, responsive and very tight and stiff although the aero position felt a little too extreme for my old body. I felt like I couldn't really do the bike justice and that I had a lot to learn to get the best out of it. My pulse was way too high as I was enjoying myself too much.
I will post some pictures and times later.
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