Pyrenees Peaks – Day One, Lourdes (3rd September 2017).
Before I start my review, let me introduce my new heartthrob – Domino. She’s a brand new Trek Domane SL 2018 model & what a beauty she is! The short story is my original bike had a crack in the carbon fibre frame & it was replaced under Trek’s Lifetime Warranty. I want to say a huge THANK YOU to Ryan from Mud Dock Cycleworks & Cafe for working incredibly hard to ensure was Domino ready for the trip & to Dan at Trek Bicycle UK for sorting out the warranty claim quickly. Without their help, I wouldn’t have had a bike to ride.
The first task of the day was to check out the breakfast facilities, so we turned up at 7.30am & were impressed to find that everyone has designated tables & that coffee, croissants, fresh French sticks & OJ were delivered directly to us!! All we had to do was choose our own cereals & jam / honey / marmalade! I’m delighted to report that our hotel is everything I’d hoped for & more – in addition to the excellent breakfast facilities, I have an enormous ‘single’ room, luxury shower, room to store everything & decent wifi.
We arrived in Lourdes at 10pm last night, so we needed to build our bikes before we could start today’s adventure. As a result, we set off at about 9.15am under bruised grey skies – it was still cool enough to need arm warmers & a gilet as we took the cycle path out of town & followed the river upstream towards Argeles-Gazost. We stayed on the path a bit too long, but as a result we were able to see a time trial race at very close quarters, as proper athletes on expensive machines whooshed past us as we pootled along the road!
The detour only added a couple of flat miles & we were soon on the right road up the early slopes of Col du Soulor, as we got our first view of the Midi-Pyrenees. We took a left turn onto a quiet back road, to take in an additional ascent of Col des Borderes to warm up the legs. By the time we were 5 miles into the climb, we were ready for a coffee stop & although we were on a fairly deserted road, we stumbled across a camp site with a café that was open – although there was no cake, the coffee was very welcome after 20 miles of riding. The final part of the climb went up in ramps, ranging from a very enjoyable 5%, up to a lactic acid building 16% in one instance – certainly not expected! My introductory photo of Domino was taken at the summit of the first climb.
After a brief descent, we made our way back onto the Col du Soulor, for the final 11km of the climb – this was first used in the 1910 Tour de France, at the end of a 300+ km stage! It’s a steady gradient all the way to the summit & with pretty views in every direction, the miles quickly passed. At the summit, we had our first experience of animals in the road, as a herd of cows strolled across the road without a care in the world – we also learned that they have right of way, as they had no intention of stopping!
After a quick ham & cheese baguette, we were on our way to Col d’Aubisque (all day I had Chris Rea’s Auberge in my head – not the best ear-worm to have!). The first couple of miles were downhill, before the road gradually started climbing again towards the heavens. There were huge drops down to the valley floor on the right hand side, so with a howling crosswind, we rode on the English side of the road where possible!
Before we knew it, we’d made it to the summit of our third Col of the day. Being a regular Tour de France route, there was a display of massive yellow, green & polka dot bikes, to represent the Tours major jerseys.
At this point, the hard riding was over for the day, we just had to negotiate the wild horses on the road during the descent (& brief climb) to Soulor, before a fun 12 mile swoop back to Argeles-Gazost for a quick refreshment stop. We then jumped on the cycle path for a gentle 10 mile ride back to Lourdes.
We were back in Lourdes before 4pm, so took the opportunity to explore a bit of the town on bike – we found the incredible Sanctuary, where pilgrims were queuing to up to enter the church. All in we were in the saddle for just over 5 hours & we clocked up 64 miles, with 7,000 feet of climbing. The perfect start to our Peaky Pyrenees adventure.
Gav's Cycling Adventures 