Day 1: Hendaye to St. Etienne-de-Baigorry

From GPS Tracklog

We caught the 7:10am train to Hendaye from Bordeaux, a splitting train which forced a last minute scramble to switch train cars before the train took off. That part of France being flat, the train moved relatively fast, and the train even had a bike car, though with only two bike spots. I ended up having to put my bike on the disabled parking spot. Roberto found a Frenchman to practice his French on, and in the process found out that there wouldn't be much competition for lodging --- most people ended their holidays a couple of weeks ago.

Arriving in Hendaye, I immediately turned on my GPS and loaded in the first part of my pre-planned route. But first, a ride to the coast to ensure that we started at sea level was in order. The route out of Hendaye wasn't too bad, with traffic being left behind relatively quickly on a Sunday. When we came to the first pass, however, excitement caused me to opt to go up Col d'Ibardin instead of doing the two shorter Cols that the RAID Pyrenees route selected. That turned out to be a mistake, since the top of Col d'Ibardin was in Spain, and was indeed a border town where Frenchmen went to shop for goods at a discount.

The weather was warm and humid, it having rained the night before, and by the time we reached the top, it was time for an early lunch. The descent into Spain was relatively traffic free, and the ride over Col de Lizuniaga unremarkable but pretty. That brought us back into France again, followed by another isolated climb over Puerto de Otxondo, followed by another pass (Col d'Ispeguy) back into France to spend the night.

In St. Etienne-de-Baigorry, we found a hotel but it was a bit expensive, so we rode on. As we rode through town center, a man playing a strange squash hybrid with his son stopped us and gave us help in finding lodging. Arriving at the hotel, however, through a misunderstanding, Roberto thought the hotel didn't serve dinner as it was after 7:30pm. I pointed out that it was only 6:00pm, but he was too impatient to try to sort things out so we ended up riding back into town for Pizza and a really excellent Gateau Basque, a really excellent local cake. It was only after we returned to the hotel that Roberto realized that he was mistaken.

Nevertheless, a good day with 98.5km and 2026m climb.

Tour Across France 2008

At the end of August in 2008, Mike Samuel, Roberto Peon and I toured across France, starting in Hendaye on the Spanish border, and then riding across the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean coast. There, we took a train transfer to Montpellier, and then rode North through Languedoc, Provence, and the Rhone Alps to Bourg-en-Bresse and then Geneva. The journey totaled
1047 miles with 92949 feet of elevation gain . This post will gather all the information about the tour, from photos to GPS tracks, and of course, my day-by-day trip report.

Pictures

• Piaw's Photo Album
• Roberto's Photo Album

Tour Report

• Day 1: Hendaye to St. Etienne (August 31st, 2008)
• Day 2: St. Etienne to Ochagavia (September 1st, 2008)
• Day 3: Ochagavia to Bielle (September 2nd, 2008)
• Day 4: Bielle to Luz-St. Sauveur (September 3rd, 2008)
• Day 5: Luz-St. Sauveur to Arreau (September 4th, 2008)
• Day 6: Arreau to St. Lary (September 5th, 2008)
• Day 7: St. Lary to Tarascon-sur-Ariege (September 6th, 2008)
• Day 8: Tarascon-sur-Ariege to Gincla (September 7th, 2008)
• Day 9: Gincla to Argeles-sur-Mer (September 8th, 2008)
• Day 10: Rest Day (September 9th, 2008)
• Day 11: Montpellier to Causse de la Selle (September 10th, 2008)
• Day 12: Causse-de-la-Selle to Ales (September 11th, 2008)
• Day 13: Ales to Orange (September 12th, 2008)
• Day 14: Orange to Entrechaux (September 13th, 2008)
• Day 15: Entrechaux to Remuzat (September 14th, 2008)
• Day 16: Remuzat to St. Julien-en-Vencors (September 15th, 2008)
• Day 17: St. Julien-en-Vencors to La Tour du Pin (September 16th, 2008)
• Day 18: La Tour du Pin to Montagnat (September 17th, 2008)
• Day 19: Rest day (September 18th, 2008)
• Day 20: Bourg-en-Bresse to Nantua (September 19th, 2008)
• Day 21: Nantua to Geneva (September 20th, 2008)

Appendices

• Appendix A: Piaw Routing
• Appendix B: Trip Statistics
• Appendix C: Bagman Long Term Review
• Appendix D: Vibram Five Fingers Review
• Appendix E: Long Term Review: Carl's Strong custom frame
• Appendix F: Exposure Joystick Maxx Review
• Appendix G: Conclusion

Tour Across France Pictures

More Greek YouTube Videos

Well, I know no one likes looking at a gazillion pictures, so I decided to just YouTube the best of them. The first is a collection of food pictures I take...I absolutely adore eating so I try to make a picture roll of them wherever I can.



The second video is about the people I met.



Watch the high quality version if possible!

Enjoy!

Nantua to Geneva

From Screen Captures

90.9km, 1467m climbed

We left at 9:15 and immediately started to climb to Le Replat at around 900m. Unfortunately due to a navigation error we climbed the wrong hill, turning right onto D55c towards Col de Belleroche (1056m) instead of towards Col de Berentin (1144m). By the time I figured it out the others were so far ahead of me I could not catch them before the next intersection. Fortunately it was a really gentle climb with beautiful scenery, so we all enjoyed the climb.

So we descended from 1044m and went up first Col de Berentin (1144m), which was a pass surrounded by forests, then descended a bit before climbing Col de
Curvery (1178m), our last col of the trip, which was a bit desolate but not too windy. Then it was a scenic descent to Bellegarde (420m), which would have granted us a grand view of Mont Blanc if it wasn't so hazy and muggy that our visibility was restricted.

In Bellegarde, we ate a lunch at a Boulangerie before starting towards Geneva via the road to Collonges, which had an annoying amount of traffic before we turned off onto the secondary road, which was straight but also quite hilly. Just before the merge back to the main highway, I told my gps to navigate us to the train station in Geneva, and lo and behold, it gave us a series of small pleasant roads to ride on (with some climbing) by crossing into Switzerland early and winding around some roads. The moment we crossed into Switzerland I knew right away because the road
immediately got smoother!

There was any occasional headwind but only the last 5km were in nasty city traffic and we got to the hotel with no problems. The tour total was 1047 miles, which was not too bad. We had 5 flats in total, 1 shredded tire, one broken saddlebag loop, loose chain ring, loose crank, the center adjustment screw came loose off Mike's brake, the shifter came loose on Mike's bike, and his saddle bag leaned against the barrel adjuster tightening it (forcing a shim from a plastic bottle to keep the bag away from the brake)), a buckle on Roberto's handlebar bag broke. Roberto's improvised fender, however, held up for thye entire trip.

Bourg-en-Bresse to Nantua

From Screen Captures

From Bourg-En-Bresse, it was a short ride today, though we first did a a brief tour to see folks we had stayed with one last time before departing --- first to the tourist information center, where we met Doriane, and she got us a reservation at Nantua, then over to the Soler's in Montagnat so I could pick up a tube of moisturizing lotion that I left the day before.

Mr. Soler had told us the day before that even though the road to Geneva on N84 was a red road on the Michelin map, there was a freeway to Geneva that paralleled it, which meant that N84 was actually worth riding. And so it proved true --- we had light traffic on rolling hills until past the river L'ain, where we were faced with 10-15% grades up from 350m to 780m over about 3km to Col du Berthiand (780m). The sun came out, so even though it was cool, we had clear views and of course, the cool weather made for nice climbing.

Mike's saddle bag hoop detached from the saddle and his right shifter came apart but both were fixed --- the saddlebag strap was attached to a seat rail instead, and Mike disassembled and reassembled the shifter. All our bikes are creaking, clicking or making strange noises that they didn't make at the start of our tour so it's just as well that our last serious day of riding was tomorrow.

We descended from the Col into Nantua, arriving at 1:00pm, in time to have a 2 hour lunch, and then a relaxing day by the beautiful lake, either walking around or shopping for groceries since the hotel we were in had expensive breakfasts. We made a reservation in Geneva for the next day, and slept well.

Not bad for 49.7km, 939m climbed, since it would let us to more riding tomorrow.

La Tour du Pins to Montagnat

From Screen Captures

We woke up in the morning to a beautiful clear day. Having bought breakfast so we could eat in the room, we checked out in record time and proceeded to ride out. Unfortunately, record time was way too fast, since I ended the day with the hotel key in my pocket! My problem today was that as we moved away from the highlands into lower areas, I was running out of scenic roads to ride, and it would be a challenge to keep us away from the big roads. We first rode out towards Morestel, and then from there headed towards Creys Mepiu.

After that, the problem became to get across the freeway and bridge near St. Maurice de Remens, so I ended up setting the GPS and getting it to do the navigation. This was Piaw Routing in action, and I was impressed by the result --- it picked a really hilly route that dumped us North of where I expected us to end up, which was not a bad thing at all, since it got us closer to the Bourg-en-Bresse. We had a quick pizza lunch, mindful of the need to get into Bourg-en-Bresse at a reasonable hour so that Roberto could find his old friends.

From there on, it was a straight shot to Bourg-en-Bresse along the river L'ain, which despite the looks of the map was not a flat road at all, but rolled up and down. Finally, a zig and a zag along D109 brought us to Les Rippes, 5km away from Bourg-en-Bresse, then we were forced to ride on the National Highway for about 2km, before turning off onto a quiet road into Bourg-en-Bresse, arriving at 3:15pm.

At that point, Roberto took over and navigated into a neighborhood where someone shouted out his name and came over and hugged him. That was how we met Mr. Soler, who led us to his home, and then together with his wife, graciously invited us to stay over for the night. We accepted.

105km, 938m climbed.

St. Julien-en-Vencors to La Tour du Pin

From Screen Captures

After yesterday's all day battle with the headwind (109km, 1831m climbed), we woke up to nearly calm weather, albeit quite a bit of fog. We started the morning descending to Gorges de la Bourne, which then led to with a gentle climb up Col de Romeyere (1074m). The light was beautiful, with sunlight filtering down through the clouds, lighting up the hills with patches of light, and on occasion as we rode up the pass, the light would come down at just the right place to light up a church, a village, or a building. As we rode up the pass, however, we were soon into the fog, and could not see much past our headlights. We even turned on our tail-lights, just in case, but the traffic was so light that we didn't have to worry very much.

At the top, we started a descent down the Route des Ecouges, and it was wonderful. We first descended in the fog and then hit an intersection which gave us views of a gorge below. We then entered a 400m long unlit tunnel (single lane only), which put us on notice that we were in for an exciting adventure! After that, the road was lined with waterfalls, sharp dropoffs, and views that might as well have come out of.a Chinese painting. Then at the bottom of the hill in St. Gervais, we found a beautifully paved bike path along the Isere river which took us to Tullins for lunch, which was much needed by then because I was so cold!

The rest of the day was filled with gentle rolling hills, a lake (Lac de Paladru) and then more hills till we got to La Tour du Pin at 5pm. La Tour du Pin looked like a nice place to stop, despite it being only 83.6km with 1067m climbed. Looking at the map that night, I saw that we would make Bourg-en-Bresse tomorrow if we got an early start and did not eat a long lunch.

Neil Med Sinus Rinse Nasal Irrigator

This is a short review.

So you guys have read about my forays into nasal irrigation. I really liked it, liked it so much that I decided to buy a 10 dollar package that consisted of a squeeze bottle and 50 packets of salt. So how does it compare to the 100 dollar irrigator that I bought two months ago?

Its as good. =).

Perhaps even better because if you really wanted, you could squeeze the water through at high speeds. It works just as well in that the water was sent thru and squeezed out all the yuucky stuff that congregates there during the night/day.

I was stuffed up during the flight, and once I irrigated in my hotel room, I felt like a new man. Gosh, how have I ever lived without nasal irrigation? Its true what they say, once you've tried it, you get hooked.

Anyway, the low sides of the irrigation unit I got was that it only had enough water for one side, and you had to squeeze two or three times to get it all through. Meaning that you'll squeeze the bottle enough to get 1/3 of the fluid through, take the bottle off your nose, let it refill with air, and then repeat to get the next 1/3 out. It was a bit disconcerting at first, and I had to learn when to stop or else I'd fill my nasal cavities with air bubbles when the bottle was nearly empty.

But it does the job as well as the 100 dollar automatic irrigator, and I think when my Grossan unit breaks, i won't replace it. The hand held unit is great, and even better, it travels. =).

Highly recommended.

Greece Vacation Slideshow Video

Went to Greece for two weeks of which 4 days was on vacation. This was the results of it. =)

I might do another one with the rest of the "interesting" pictures I have, but for now, this will have to do.

Now in High Quality!

Entrechaux to Remuzet

From Screen Captures

Mike felt queasy last night, to the poont of not finishing dinner. From the veranda of our hotel, we looked out South and the same dark cloud bank on top of Mt. Ventoux from yesterday was still there, continually renewed by fresh clouds. We decided there and then that even if we did the 1600m+ climb, we would not see much from Ventoux, so I plotted a route out of the area, heading down D40, past Pas du Ventoux (312m), and a second minor 300m pass. At Reilhanette, we turned off on D159, where Col d'Aulan (845m) began. The road took us up along the Toulourenc river, along a lovely gorge with very little traffic, though one driver did give us a thumbs up as he drove the opposite way. At the top we were rewarded by views of a mostly intact castle, but elected not to visit this time.

We then descended to St. Auban where the only restuarant was closed but the next town over had a restaurant with excellent pizza.

After lunch, we had a choice, Col de Perty (1302m) or Col de Peyruegue (820m) and Col de Soubeyrand (994m). The ominous clouds that had gathered bade us chose the lower climbs. Peyruegue was short and easy, but Soubeyrand was the prettier, granting us views of the surroundings in mixed artist's light as we climbed, ever changing. The constant wind had kept the air clear, granting us amazing visibility.

Past the summit, we went right into dark clouds again, so a quick descent into Remuzat was in order where we found a well appointed hotel with Creme Brulee flavored ice cream at a good price.

Another relatively easy day with 80.6km traveled and 1540m climbed.

St. Marcellin

48.7km 432m climbed

We left Orange and immediately headed into a massive headwind. Riding
into Vaison where we had some relief due to the Mountains to the
North, we saw a bike shop but they did not have a replacement lateral
adjustment screw for Mike.

One more km later, to add insult to injury Mike got another front flat
from a glass cut. The wind got nastier and I saw to my dismay that
Ventoux was shrouded in clouds.

We stopped in Entrevaux and called a couple of hotels before finding
one that would take a call. They had a room for us and when we showed
up we were a little surprised to find it right in the middle of some
vineyards. I called for a short day in light of the impending weather.

After lunch I riode to town to pick up groceries and it rained on me a
bit. I guess it was destined to be a short day one way or another. If
this is typical Provencal weather I wonder why anyone thinks it's
great touring country. If I'm to be rained on I'd rather be in the
Alps.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Ales to Orange

From Screen Captures

We decided that we would make an attempt at Ventoux. Roberto had emphasized that he wanted to visit Bourg En Bresse before the end of the trip, and it was on the way. (Plus, who could resist another tall mountain?)

From Ales we headed East towards Salindres and Navacelles. Just before Salindres, however, I got my first (and only) flat of the trip --- a glass flat, no doubt picked up by having wet tires roll over city streets. The terrain was rolling, with views of the hills around us. This was classic Provence touring country, low shrubs with no forest, and wild desolate scenery that was reminiscent of the American West. At Lussan, we stopped for lunch, and then rolled towards Bagnols-s-Ceze, but turned off to visit Cascade du Sautadet, a beautiful stream side road, before heading North into St. Laurent-de-Carnols, where we picked up D23.

At the top of the hill, there was an old castle, Chartreuse de Valbonne, which elicited a detour from us. The castle was very nice, but I beheld an even rarer sight there --- a woman cyclist touring by herself (I could tell she was touring by herself because she had 4 panniers), and no companions. We would espy her later at Pont-St-Esprit. Unfortunately, with the push to Ventoux, we didn't stop to talk to her, and rode on towards Pont-St. Esprit after getting a few pictures.

At Pont-St. Esprit, we crossed the river Rhone for the first time, and made our way towards Mondragon on as small a road as my GPS uni could find, but the wind was so strong and annoying that not only did the bridge crossings feel precarious, so did any road sharing! From Mondragon, I picked up D152 towards Rochegude, an unremarkable road following vineyards and winding up some hills. Rochegude had another old castle, but one used as a hotel. It was a four-star place, however, so one look at the price list sent us running (or rather, cycling) for our lives.

From the map, it looked like St.-Cecile-Les-Vignes had lodging, and indeed it did, but because it was a Friday night, everything was taken. The local Logis-de-France place told me that the nearest place would be Orange, so off we went, down D65 towards Orange. This was a scenic ride, and very pleasant, now that there was a tail-wind with us. We made that 15km run in well under 30 minutes to take a cheap place in Orange after very little hunting.

A relatively flat day, with 113km cycled and 1226m climbed.

Causse-de-la-Selle to Ales

From Screen Captures

We left Causse-de-la-Selle around 9:15am, heading towards Ganges. The road was pretty, running along the same river we had ridden yesterday, but it didn't take an hour before we ran into a mechanical problem --- Roberto's cassette was loose! Fortunately, each of us carried an NBT2, intended for removing cassettes for replacing a broken spoke, but it can also be used for tightening them up, and after a bit of fiddling, we got it to work. I bought a supply of those in 2005 in Switzerland, and they are definitely worth carrying in the saddlebag.

We then rode through Ganges in a hurry, and rode towards Laselle via a series of small but scenic roads all labeled D153 through country villages, local hills, and lovely rock formation. I decided that I liked the road enough that from lasalle, we chose to continue along the road to St. Jean-du-Gard, where we had a grocery store lunch.

From St. Jean-du-Gard, the road to Ales was marked as being closed, but I bet that bicycles can get past any road block, and indeed, when we got to the road construction, the construction crew paused a moment from their work and let us through, no trouble at all, granting us a relatively traffic free ride from then on, though the locals that did drove the road went pretty fast.

The climb up to Aubignac demonstrated Piaw Routing in a big way, leading us up along a hiking road (paved, but steep) before descending into the backside of a campground and then joining the main road. This was pretty riding but tough. There was a bit of drizzle on the climb to Col d' Uglas (539m), but it went away relatively quickly, and I thought nothing of it... untilthe descent, when it poured. I don't mean regular heavy rain, I think we had an inch in about 15 minutes. Not only did the brakes work less well, it also made for poor visibility. In several places the road was flooded and we rode through with ankles soaked, repeatedly dunking our bottom brackets into the water.

To top it off when we got to Ales, all the hotels reported being booked, so we had to ride to a suburb to find one with room for us. They didn't have a restaurant but there was a Chinese buffet place across the street --- Restaurant Aux Delices Des Etoiles, with reasonable prices, and run by a family that was actually from Zhe-Jiang from China. We ate our fill and I had a nice chat with the family.

With 101km and 1606m climbed, we hoped for dryer weather tomorrow.

Montepellier to Causse de la Selle

From Screen Captures

Our train didn't leave till past noon, so I got in a swim at the beach (again) before leaving. If you're ever in the area, mornings are the best time for the beach --- there's very little wind, and you get the beach all to yourself. The water's a little cooler, but not noticeably so.

We checked out, bought a grocery store lunch, and then rode to the train station, which was about 2km away. There's plenty of horror stories about bikes on french trains, so on this trip, I tried to avoid taking French trains as much as possible. The Argeles-Sur-Mur to Montpellier run could easily have been another horror story --- unlike German and Swiss trains, the French regional rails don't have bike cars, so we loaded up our bikes into the entryway of the bike. Obviously the conductor was unhappy with that, but fortunately he was a nice guy, and rather than throwing us off the train (which I've heard of happening), he asked us to move our bikes into the disabled parking spot for wheelchairs, etc. We had to unload our baggage from the bikes, and then tie handlebars and wheels down. This meant that to unload ourselves in Montpellier we had to form a human chain to get everything down in the limited amount of time.

Once in Montpellier, I once again relied on my GPS unit to get us out of crappy riding as quickly as possible by first setting a course for Grabels, then Murles, then Cambous. It was 20km of riding before we got out of the the suburbs of Montpellier. This was the Languedoc area still, and got great views of the vineyards around as we rolled around the area. Then we headed north out of St. Martin de Londres towards Causse de la Selle. The climb was ok, but the descent was gorgeous, winding around lovely rock formations, rivers, lakes, and finally crossing a bridge before the final approach.

Causse de la Selle was a one hotel town, with a Logis de France place. They looked closed, however, and when I called them they confirmed that they closed on Wednesdays. A minute later, however, they called back and said they would open just for us, but there would be no dinner service. That was fine by me, so we accepted and got ourselves a room for 3 for the night. There was a restaurant in walking distance.

A short day, with 50km, 696m of climb.

Rest Day: Tour du Madaloc

From Screen Captures

Mike and I got up at 8am, ate a quick breakfast. And rode towards Colliure, hoping to pick up the trail to Tour du Madeloc. Soon, we saw other cyclists on the road and on a hunch followed them. That was a good choice, since they led us up a road that wasn't on my map onto D86 and confirmed that this was Tour du Madeloc. The views from the climb were as pretty as I remember from 10 years ago, with the Cote Vermeille off to our left and the pretty seaside village of Collioure gleaming away in the distance.

At the junction we turned right after a short retrograde and then right again after climbing to 450 meters. Then past the no-entry sign (regularly ignored by everyone) the grade got steep as it climbed to 652m in steep pitches that almost had my
front wheel lifting off the ground.

Fortunately our gears were low enough and we were at the top of the mountain. After pictures and admiring the scenery we headed down the mountain, but didn't get far before I heard a pop. It wasn't my tire but it was Mike's. We booted the tire but Mike didn't trust it so he decided to walk down while I rode to the hotel to get a spare.

On the way back,I got a call from Mike saying that a he had gotten a folding 23 from a passing van, so we agreed to meet in Collioure where we had lunch (our waiter happened to be one of the Mountain Bikers who had guided us this morning!).

Back at the hotel, Mike fixed up his brake (which rubbed against the tire causing it to explode), and I mailed maps I didn't need anymore back to myself. Roberto bought train tickets to Montpelier, and I took a brisk swim at the beach. Dinner was at a Turkish restaurant which gave me a pear-based dish that was quite good!

46.5km, 1124m of climb. Not bad for a rest day.

Gincla to Argeles-Sur-Mer

From Screen Captures

We set off this morning up D22 to the top of Col d'Aussueres (1020m). It was cool to the point where we had to go hard to warm up, but the top of the Col was in sunlight, with views of pastoral farmland before descending down to the Pyrenean desert on the other side.=. The descent down to Sournia was on pretty but narrow and rough roads, with only occasional traffic. Once there, however we took a wrong turn towards Campoussy instead of towards Col des Auzines (606m). What really irked me about this mistake was that I had my GPS unit there, and I have even written a blog post on dynamic routing, my I had neglected to put my brain in gear and use it when the intersection was signed ambiguously. Fortunately, we did not have to do much extra climbing before turning around and heading towards the right place --- Col des
Auzines. The approach to this pass was classic Pyrenean desert with chapparal and rock outcroppings --- the only thing that told me it wasn't California were the old ruined castles and the like. From just past the Col we could see our first glimpse of the Mediterreanean.

With the beach in view at last, we were pulled towards the coast with ferocity. The descent was fast and furious, and the corners well graded and banked, so soon we were in Ille-sur-Tet.

The last 30km or so to the beach was a drag --- stiff headwinds, heavy beach traffic, and warm weather, a shock to my system after the cool morning. The roads were also rough --- much worse than the mountains. As we approached Argeles-Sur-Mer, Mike discovered that his saddlebag was leaning against his rear brake cable, causing an annoying noise. We stopped at a supermarket to pick up Orangina bottles, drinking one immediately to cut the bottom into a shim to fix this problem. Riding into Argeles-Sur-Mer was such a headache that I resolved to take a train out of the area if possible.

After asking at the local Hotel de Ville (city hall), we were directed to the tourist information center, where we got a list of hotels, and picked a cheap one with air conditioning. We got an obligatory picture of the three of us at the beach with our bikes, and by 5pm I was on the beach at Argeles-Plage, swimming and getting ready for a much needed "rest day", after having ridden 96.3km and climbed 1024m.

The night, I discovered the true purpose of the Vibram Five Fingers --- while playing air hockey with Roberto, a beautiful blond woman came up to me and started talking to me excitedly. Since my French was nearly non-existent, I was non-plussed until I'd figured out that she was talking about my shoes! I obliged and took off my shoes and showed it to her.

Tarascon-sur-Ariege to Gincla

From Screen Captures

We left Tarascon this morning late as usual and headed in the wrong direction to pick up a beautiful road known as route des corniches which starts in Bompas with a scary 15% grade which turned out to be a false scare as the road itself (D20) was relatively level. It was a lovely road, shaded by trees with farms and lots of things to look at. Riding along the ridge I was struck by how beautiful this road was --- it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip despite the relatively low altitude, winding its way high above the ridge where we could see the main national highway before, with views of the villages below us.

The descents were gentle and swooping, giving us lots of time to admire the views, and the climb was relatively gentle. Upon looking at my Michelin map, I saw that there was a trail marked from Cassou directly to Col de Marmare (1361m), bypassing Col de Chioula (1431m). Well, a rough stuff traverse this convenient begged to be tried, so we took it, knowing that it could be quite a bit of work. The trail started out nicely enough, with butterflies of varying colors fluttering before our wheels, and views of the surrounding peaks. About a couple of kilometers into it, however, the trail suddenly took a sharp left turn, and went up at what looked like a 30% grade.

Looking at my GPS unit, it looked like we only had 1km left, but we had to climb 300m in that time, so we got off our bikes, and braced ourselves for a slog. And a slog it was. It turned out to be a horse trail, and the hiking was tough, necessitating several stops to lift our bikes over rocks, tree roots, and other obstacles. We had to rest quite frequently, and by the time we summited we were tired. (And there was also a sign that said no bikes, which didn't do us any good!)

Our reward a 4 course 2 hour lunch with Creme Brulee as the dessert. We then went over Col des 7 Feres (1253m) and descended on D20, a gorgeous slot carved into a gorge along a river. By then it was getting late but we got to a tourist information center off the main road at the Axat intersection before it closed and booked a place in Gincla.

Riding into Gincla, we were impressed by the hotel we had booked sight unseen --- it was a Logis de France place, but because of the isolation it was very expensive.

A relatively easy day with 89.3km and only 1512m climbed (except for the rough stuff).

St. Lary to Tarascon-sur-Ariege

From Screen Captures

We woke up in the morning to the sound of rain, and so took our time with breakfast hoping that the rain would go away by the time we left. This turned out to be a strategic mistake, as the rain didn't stop, and so we didn't leave till till 10:40am. It drizzled mildly as we descended into St. Girons with mildly annoying traffic. In St. Girons, I tried to navigate us onto a small road along the Gorges de Ribaouto, but it turned out to be one way only in the wrong direction so we had to ride the main road along the river to Masat, where we stopped for a huge 4 course lunch. It was so big none of us could finish the main dish and Mike had to decline the dessert.

There, we debated the wisdom of various alternate routes to Tarascon that might be more scenic or less traffic'd, but the rain that came down as we left the restaurant decided that for us --- we ended up riding along the main road onto Col des Caougnous (947m) and Col de Port (1250m). The rain was quite warm, so much so that I had to shed my rain jacket halfway up as it got too hot. The rain started getting heavy as we arrived at the summit, and then we had the cold descent in the rain before we arrived in Tarascon. In Tarascon, we looked at two hotels before settling into the Hotel de la Post along with another group of van-supported cycle tourists. That turned out not to be such a bright idea as the hot showers were only luke-warm when 20 or 30 cyclists tried to use them at once, but the food was decent. Our Kindles which had become our primary defense against the incredibly slow French food service industry, drew a lot of attention in the dining room.

A soggy day with 87.1km traveled, and only 1019m climbed. We hoped for better weather the next day.

Arreau to St. Lary

From Screen Captures

We woke up to sunny skies, and proceeded down the road towards Col de
Peyresourde (1569). The Col was marked on my Michelin map as a double chevron, supposedly well above 8%, but the reality was that the road was straight and didn't feel very steep at all, with nice tail wind helping us push all the way to the top. The only real challenge was a deliberately set brush fire that generated a ton of smoke which forced us to sprint through it. The summit had a cafe where a couple of British cyclists were sitting down, having passed us unloaded. Being friendly, we sat down with them and ordered lunch and had a good chat.

The two of them had done the full Raid tour the year before, and hence could give me information about the surrounding areas. My GPS-set route had us going South from Bagneres-de-Luchon into Spain, but my companions still did not want to brave the hospitality industry in Spain. It turned out that the road I was trying to ride around, D125 had wide bike lanes, so we didn't have to route around it. I also spotted a white road (as described in Raising the Bar). This wasn't on the official Raid tour, but since we couldn't give a rat's ass about that anyway, and the OCD guide gave it good reviews, we decided to go for it and ignore the rest of my carefully routed GPS routes.

The descent from Col de Peyresourde turned out to be just as fast as all the previous Cols, and we arrived in Bagneres-de-Luchon delighted to find a tailwind waiting for us. We quickly rode the flat 18km to Marignac, and turned off onto D44 towards St. Beat. The warm day had left Roberto already with empty water bottles, so he filled up at a cafe in St. Beat despite the owner's unhappiness at not making money off the transaction. The climb up Col de Mente(1349m) felt quite a bit tougher than Col de Peyresourde, ranging above 8% most of the time, but fortunately the sky chose to cloud up at that moment, which made the climb relatively cool.

At the top, I put on a jacket, arm and leg warmers and ate my apple. When everyone had showed up, we first looked at the lodging available right at the top of the Col --- it turned out that while they had rooms, they had no food, so we began the descent towards Col de Portet d'Aspet (1069). All through the descent we tried to find lodging but had no luck because I had stupidly thought that France's area code was 43, rather than 33, so every phone number at every B&B returned a busy signal.

Well, we thus had no choice but to climb the Col, riding past the memorial for Fabio Casartelli. By the time we arrived at the top, Mike was out of water, I was nearly out as well, and Roberto was still climbing. So Mike dumped his saddlebag, filled up bottles at the fountain, and went down to get Roberto. On the climb, I noticed an advertisement for a Logis de France hotel in St. Lary, so I knew we could find something if we kept going. Riding down to St. Lary, we followed the signs to a very nice hotel. This was doubly surprising because the advertisements had announced that it was not just a hotel, but also a bar and a tobacco shop. We ordered the demi-pension, and got a nice suite much better than the 65 Euro charge would have implied. The waitress was also quite pretty, so Roberto went back to the hotel room to get his camera so he could take pictures with her.

Of all the days we had while riding, this felt the most like a day in the alps: 84.5km, 2204m climb.