Col d' Marie Blanque

Nice... 3rd and final climb of day 9!

Descent of Col d'Aubisque...

At home nursing my wounds and getting over a cold I've come across this...

Looks amazing doesn't it... unfortunately he is riding down the way we will be riding up!!!!

11 minutes down hill at that pace is err... several more going up and this is just the little bit between the Col d'Aubisque and Col d'Soulor!



On the plus side this was shot with a GoPro Hero 2 mounted on a chest mount, at 720p the video quality looks great.

OMG - More on Day 9!!!!

Day 9 on our trip is undoubtedly going to be remembered!!!! 

I have looked at the route and imported it into a different mapping system and found the elevation to be err... somewhat different than the mapmyride site!

Take note of the Elevation +11386 ft and Max grade of 31.4% and not 6700 ft as reported by MMR!   looking at that i thought that must be wrong so i then compared the route to the well know Dartmoor Classic 65 mile route... after all that is considered to be a very tough ride!   below is the result of that comparison!  

OMG the blue line is the hilly 65 mile Dartmoor Classic the red is day 9's ride...  the elevation marker is on the summit of the Col d'Aubisque which is spot on. 

Last Graph... honest!

To help put it into prospective i have over-layed the 2013 Coasting Cornwall 60 mile sportive route,  that is a tough 60 mile route with several major climbs to negotiate, it starts at Lanhydrock and goes through St Neot, Looe, Lerryn and Lostwithiel! lumpy to say the least. 

Bearing in mind when i plan a ride around here i try to keep the climbing to around 100ft per mile so it stays challenging this day is going to be 196 ft/mile!!!!!!!!!! like I said a day to remember!

Doesn't look much like 30% to me! just looks awesome! 

I pretty sure it wont be quite 11000 odd ft and will be somewhere between the two... thats the optimistic side of me coming out. lol 

Sometimes you just wish you never looked into things!!!

Route pages.

On our route pages the maps are fully interactive!

You can zoom/scroll and even "walk" around the route.  Simply pick up the gold man in the top left of the map and place him on the route!  you can even see how hilly it's going to be!  not 100% thats a good thing!!!!