Day 8 - I skipped the Mont Ventoux

Today I did a casual ride, some where around 30 miles. The navigation on my Garmin didn't seem to be tracking me properly, so I stopped it and restarted. When I restarted the Garmin wasn't recording.

So take a look - very easy day - https://www.strava.com/activities/698699665

And the continuation - https://www.strava.com/activities/698699863

Looks like the grapes are getting ready for the harvest.

I get a kick out of how they tell you that you are leaving a town.

I stoppped in Bedouin and bought a jersey.

The Giant of Provance

After removing my equipment from the bike and showering I had lunch. A cheese tart, which I would call a Quiche, followed by duck, shown below, and a chocolate thing (cupcake with warm chocolate sauce inside. I had a carafe of red wine and a Cafe at Lait. Delicous!!!

Tomorrow we drive back to Karlsruhre.

Day 7 my fourth ride

Check out my Strave data - https://www.strava.com/activities/698199202

Unfortunately my Garmin stopped recording at the coffee break

Below are a couple of picture of the coffee break in Collioure. A beautiful beach on the Metiterranean.

Ingoff had a beer, Martin had a banana milk shake, everyone else had some form of coffee. Of course we had to have something to go with it (who's counting calories). 

After our break we heade along the shore to our finishing point for the Randomee portion the the ride.

We got our final stamp and Andrew presenter our diplomas and medals.

I was surprised to get them, I guess they felt sorry for the old guy.

I've got to tell you these climbs are nothing like I've done in the USA. Grade and distance are brutal.

After a little champagne, we loaded up and to the vicinity of the "Giant of Provance" - Mont Ventoux.

It is a 21 km climb with an average over 8% with many sections at 9,10, 11, and 12%. I've decided to ride near the hotel and recover. I'm a whinney.

Day 6 - My third ride

It's 10:30 and I'm beat. I will update the blog tomorrow - updated now

We had two climbs yesterday - Col du Port, and Col du Pailherer. It has been harm and humid. Temperatures 30-35C, and the humidity has been in the mud 70's. I'm doing fine until I start climbing, then I sweat profusely, I down about 2 liters on  15 km climb. I refill at the top and loos it all again.

I finished the first climb (12 km 6.5% average grade), I got to the top and I couldn't open my iPhone because I was sweating so much, So I took the picture with my camera. Check the picture below of our lunch. The breads are to die for, every day Andrew buys fresh bread to use for lunch. We have water, sodas, fruits. And we are eating as much as we can.

Check out my Strava data - https://www.strava.com/activities/697136487 the entry is flagged because I had abnormally fast time to the top of Col de Pailheres, brutal climb. 

We have all seen the graffiti on the roads for the TDF, a different type of graffiti is showing up "non ours" French for "non bears". The French government is repopulating the area with brown bears and is causing a big concern of the citizens. Some sheep have been killed, but the government is reimbursing the farmers. I'm not sure how big a concern it is, I haven't seen a single bear, let along "scat".

As we ride in the mountains we are coriander by what sounds like wind chimes. Bells are placed around the necks of cattle (cows, sheep, goats, and horse) many different tones are heard providing a very mesmerizing melody.

The second climb was up Col Du Pailheres. The one was 19 km at 7.5% average. Unfortunately they got rid of the easy grades at the bottom. My Garmin was showing 10-12% about 8 km from the top. I tried calling for help, but no coverage. I stopped a car, but no English. At 6 km to go I got cell coverage and called Andrew. He picked me up about 5.5 km from the top. Strava is complaining about the car ride to the top, but I'm having trouble using my tablet to skip the car ride. So until I fix that Strava is blocking my data.

Here is the picture at the top, as I was taking this picture the horse on the left let out the longest fart I have aver heard.

PC and Ingun made it to the top, took a short break and we headed downhill.

The switch backs were so tight and frequent, I wondered how professional races could take this downhill at race speed. I noticed there was a lot more graffiti on this side, so I guess this is the way they came up.

We had one more climb (I don't remember the name). I tried callin PC because my Garmin was showing me off course. I only had one bar and I kept loosing the. I left a voice message. I continued on and finally got back on course. I reached the top and PC was talking to Andrew. Andrew suggested a shortcut to save 8 km (not much, but I will take anything).

We finished up at 7:30 with 108 miles (174 km) which was a lot more than the 166 km he told us.

Tomorrow is an easy day, aout 88 km mostly down hill. I can handle that.

Day 5 - my second day of riding

Actually, this is the third day of cycling, but my second. Just to keelp things straight.

Yesterday I made my post before dinner, We did not have "mountain" food as promised, I was disappointed. We ordered off the menu.

Check out my Strave data - https://www.strava.com/activities/696052064 I've never had a suffer score so high.

We started riding at 9 after breakfast and packing the trailer. I rode with PC and Ingun, we stayed together except for the climbs, PC is very strong, and Ingun climbs faster than me.

Our first climb is to Col d'Aspin 1490m, The climb started 12km from the summit with and average grade of 7%, some less, some more. After my crash I felt fairly good, but my right calf is still tender.

Our second climb was shortly after a nice descent. The sign below are on the major TDF climbs. They have an initial sign showing the beginning, average grade, distance, and updates every kilometer.

This was our second climb only 9km, but the average grade was 7.5%. As you can see we had several  kilometers that were higher than the average, Including the final two kilometers.

Our third climb was a short one, only 4km, 797m, at 4-5%. This one is not a major TDF climb, so it didn't have the signs.

On the final climb (Col de Portet d'Aspet 1969m for 9km, average grade 7.5%) there was a dedication to Fabio Casastelli who was a teammate of Lance Armstrong's and died on the descent in 1992. We were climbing up the side he went down. At the area he crashed, the grade was 17% downhill, he went over the barrier and died.

This was a brutal climb, there were a couple of 17% sections that I ended up walking, this bike isn't geared as low as my cross country bike, and it hit me hard.

At the top (6PM) we took quick picture, filled up our water and texted Andrew. Then we headed downhill. We made a quick stop at a butcher shop to stamp our checkpoint cards and continued on to the hotel. We arrived at 8PM, they gave us 15minutes to shower and get down to dinner.

Dinner tonight wasn't "mountain" food again. We had a fixed menu with a local flair. Delicious 

Tomorrow has similar climbs and and 170 km. PC, Ingun and I are starting at 8:30, a half hour before the stronger German riders. PC could probably hang with them, but he committed to ride with his wife. Nice guy.

Day 4 - No Riding For me

Welllll, I didn't sleep well and my legs were very sore, so I decided to skip today.

This day was going to be an epic day, it is currently 1930 and PC and Ingun still haven't finished, all the German riders are in. Today would have been another 150 km and 3,900 meters of elevation gain. My legs would n or be able to handle it. 

The disqualifies me for the Raid Pyrenees Randomee, but I still saw some beautiful scenery, and worked with Andrew to get the bike road worthy.c

We started the day with a visit to a bike shop to get handle as and a new stem. I France, this isn't' taste easy as it sounds. The shop should of opened at 9:00, we were there, but the manager didn't open until 9:30. Then they spend 20 minutes moving bike outside for display. Finally we were invited in to look around. We waited while they had their coffee. Finally we got someone's attention. Andrew explained what we needed, he went in the back and came back with aluminum handle bars as we requested. When we asked the price he disappeared for about 15 minutes. Got the price and asked for a stem. Finally got the price for the parts (100 euros), paid and we were on our way. Andrew explained that this was the French way.

Today I rode with Andrew to support the riders. About 30 km into the ride they reached the peak of Col de Marie Blanque, this was probably the steepest climb for the day, peaking at 13%, but was much shorter than the others.

The next climb started "up" after 47 km to Col d'Aubisque at an altitude of 1,709 meters, this has goes uphill for 25 km.

We met the riders at the top of each climb and had two lunch breaks between the climbs (they burned a lot of calories).

The final climb was to Col de Tourmalet (2,115 m). The climb started at about 100 km and went up for 35km. After the two prior climbs everyone said their legs felt like lead on the last 2 km of this climb. Fortunately the final 20 km were down hill.

This is called the "giant" a larger than life size cyclists.

Tomorrow I plan on riding 163 km with 2,700 vertical meters of climbing, should be a piece of cake.

Day 3 - First day riding

We started riding about 9:30 to get to Hendaye (pronounced - On Day). We hit the tourist bureau to get our initial checkpoint stamp, To my surprise they used the sea shell of the pilgrimage - El Camino de Santagio - This pilgrimage has been in place since the 1500's and terminated at the Cathedral in Santagio Spain.

Check out my Strava link - https://www.strava.com/activities/693342037

The ride was 150 km, but I was slow at pressing go on my Garmin.

Shortly after starting PC (my friend from Norway) had a flat tire, and a little later he had another. But this time we found two sources for the flats.

We got back underway. The entire tour group stayed together today. And about 30 mile in we made a wrong turn, the group started to stop and I was not quick enough and crashed into Martin. We went down. I think I got the brunt of the damage, not only did I get abrasions on both elbows and my right knee, but I had bruised muscled (right calf, and left upper hamstring), these eased up as we rode. I also damaged the rental bike, bent the handlebar, tore up the handle bar tape, and abused the shift levers. Our tour guide is trying to find replacements.

We made it to the hotel around 6 PM and I soaked in a bath to ease my aches. It helped a little.

Andrew, our tour guide told us to expect "mountain" food, not typical France cuisine. I was presently surprised. We started with a chicken vegetable soup (very hearty), followed by a lamb stew over pasta and/or rice. Everything is served family style. And they brought more as we emptied a dish. For desert I chose a Basque cake, which was very tasty. 

I'm looking forward to more "mountain" food

I also noticed the cities/town are shown in two different languages, French and Basque.

Sorry, no pictures I had trouble connecting my cell phone to the Internet. Maybe tomorrow is will be able to add some pictures.

From Left to right - Martin, Volker, PC, Marcel, Ingun, me, and Ingoff

This is my loaner bike, before the crash.

Just outside the town where we had lunch, where one of the pilgrimages for the El Camino de Santiago starts.

Day 2 - Clermont France to Urdanibia Spian

Another driving day we departed Clermont and drove to Urdanibia Spain. As we got closer we were talking about doing a short ride of 40-50 km (multilpy by .62 to get miles), but as we were getting our bikes ready it started raining. So we went into town. 

We enjoyed some Tapas (they call them Pintxo in the Basque area of Spain).

We had dinner and Andrew reviewed the plans for tomorrow. We received our "checkpoint" cards a frame number for our bikes.

Above are pictures of these items. 

Since this is a French event, it doesn't start until we enter France (Henday about 5 km). 

Checkpoints are at any business in the town. 

Tomorrow we will meet after breakfast at 9:00 to load our gear and have a final route review. 

Tomorrow we well ride 150 km and climb 1,100 vertical meters (multiply by 3.3 to get feet). This will be an easy day. 

Watch for tomorrow's actual ride.