France Cycling Trip 2011, Part Nine

Even after three days of being in France I wasn't sleeping right. I was doing all the right things, like not taking naps and not boozing insane amounts but it just wasn't cutting it. I didn't really feel "normal" until halfway through the trip. But this day was a new day, and my third ride in the Pyranees, so you just have to tough that sh1t out and get moving.

This day we did not depart from our cabins in Vicdessos - instead we loaded up the transport vans with all of our bikes and gear and went to the nearby town of Massat. Todays ride was to check out some of the route that most of us were going to race on in a few days.

As the crow flies it is only about 20 minutes away, but you can't get anywhere as the crow flies in the Pyranees so it took an hour and a half going up and over a couple of mountains on twisty, windy roads. One woman in my van started to get a bit motion sick (I was wondering when someone would) and we had to pull over to let her get her poop in group. She recovered and we went on.

After leaving Massat we did a lot of flat riding along a river. It is just so beautiful riding along rushing water.

I was better than most of my teammates on the hills thus far, but the flats, well that was another story. It was painfully apparent that these folks had done a LOT more line riding than me. Most of my riding is alone here in Wisco. They kept riding away from me. I just had to put the hammer down and keep up. There wasn't a choice.

Our first hill is the cat 2 Col de Letrape. I don't remember for sure but I was in the top three to the top of this one. Interesting how short and easy it felt compared to the Plateau de Beille.

This was a nice climb with a lot of woods.

The next climb was the cat 1 or 2 (I don't remember) Col du Saraille. This was basically a glorified goat path. A very narrow winding road up to just outside of Massat. The descent of this one was incredibly scenic through a forest. By this time it was getting cold, rainy and nasty. We were back in Massat and many of the folks were bailing on todays riding but I decided to take the "extra credit" climb of the other side of the Port de Lers. After eating lunch, that got completely cancelled by the tour folks as the weather kept deteriorating. It was the smart move to pull off.

Todays numbers:
43.78 miles
3 hours 18 minutes 21 seconds saddle time
13.2 mph average speed
35.6 mph max speed
3588 feet of gain

We got back to the cabins after the return trip. It was Wednesday and that is Dave's day off so the tour folks made dinner for us. It began with cocktails - I chose the local champagne (when in France). This is me with Colin - local legend in Madison and former professional bike racer. He paid me some compliments on my hill climbing - that meant a lot to me.

Here is dinner - pasta with veggies and some of the local sausage with a tomato sauce. Couldn't be beat.

Much fun was had this night with our outdoor picnic, although it was a bit chilly.

It was at this point that I noticed my weight was dropping a bit. I had been eating as much as I possibly could, but the mountains and the heat from the previous days just melt the pounds off of me. I sweat WAY more than most people and this is a huge disadvantage for a guy like me. I mentioned in a comment a post or two ago that I lost a full 8% of my body weight while in France, and that was while I was eating the most rich foods I could find in mass quantities.

In the last post Gerry asked a good question - he was wondering about the oxygen deprivation on the climbs. The short answer is that there wasn't any. I think it is because we start most of the climbs around sea level and end up at (typically) two thousand meters. The highest point of our entire trip (coming up) was the Tourmalet at 2115 meters. Even at that height there was no noticable difference in the air, to me anyways. In the Rockies you would certainly have a harder time with the oxygen since you would start most of your climbing at a mile up and go from there.