The day we all came for had arrived!! yesterdays glorious weather didn't stay with us! rain again! grrr.. although not too bad..
After a short prayer by reverent and tea maker Duffy we set off in earnest!
Unfortunately the route Craig had planned wasn't an option due to the river having burst its banks and ruined the cycle path so after a slight lumpy (just for a change) detour we were back on track! off to the Col du Soulor.
A 11.7 mile climb with and average grade of 5.1%, tell about go on forever. We all started off separately and made our own way up, this length climb is very hard to do at someone-else's pace. I tried to stay with Craig and Christian but that was never going to happen! I had a plan to ride the climb... keep my heart rate down below 140 bpm and i should be ok and not burn my-self out too soon! trying to keep with that pair it soon raced above that so swallow my pride and go away steady was the way to go... pacing a few of the team as i went i caught Martin and stayed on his wheel for a bit only to be dropped rapidly when he put a bit of a kick in on a flat section half way up!
The climb got serious when we passed through a little village. Not long after that i caught sight of John again and caught him, we rode together for around 6km of climb until with 1km to go he said sprint to the finish! err that'll be a no...!
Getting to the top felt really good although the weather had really pulled in and visibility was really bad (bloody cold too!)
Everyone did really well... it was a massive climb! after a quick coffee and photo we were off to the Col d'Aubisque.
With a time of 1:20:53 and Strava ranked 239 out of 624 i was well happy with that!
The road between the col's was cold and the visibility got even worse. Snow on the ground kind of says it all really! very cold!.
The climb to the Col d'Aubisque was less of a climb than i was thinking with the summit coming far quicker than expecting, probably because you could see a hand in front of your face!
The decent down the mountains was a bit dicey to start... a VERY near miss with a stupid horse was followed by a very wet decent... drying roads and improving temperature and weather made the final decent awesome!
The decision was made to not climb the Col de Marie Blanque due to the weather so a straight run in the hotel it was.
Everyone was well and truly spent at dinner... after a 100 miler the day before this was about as much of a day as any of us could do!
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