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.