And, in a nutshell, these two things are what you are trying to avoid when you are descending at great speeds - getting too hot into a corner (the first crash) and slippery/gravelly pavement (crash two). I took far fewer risks than a lot of my tripmates, but at all times my goal was, as I have been saying, "not to die" and that goal was accomplished. On some of these switchbacks they are so steep that you let off the brakes and you are instantly at 30 mph or faster.
So I was on to my second day of cycling in the Pyranees. We took a "warm up" ride from our first base village of Vicdessos to Tarascon sur Ariege. I put warm up in quotes because I got behind one of our tripmates and we decided that our warm up would be a sprint to Tarascon - it was about 8 miles. The route is slightly downhill the whole way and I just got in his wheel and we flew there averaging around 30 mph. We were hauling ass. I would not have done this if I knew what was to come later in the day. More on that later.
We rode in the valley for a while and stopped in some of the scenic cities along the way - every town has a beautiful stream running through it. In fact, there was quite a lot of water in these mountains - streams, creeks, waterfalls, rivers, you name it. Don't drink it. It looks beautiful, but is has goat, cow, sheep and human shit and piss in it and you will get ill.
Our first climb of the day was a cat 1 or 2 (it isn't officially rated) Pas de Solumbrie. There really isn't anything online or an official hill profile for this one, it is simply a tiny mountain road that winds up and up and up and ends in Cazanave. I was feeling very confident after how well I did my first day, and when the climb started I decided that I was going to be the first one up to the top. I accomplished that goal - it was getting a bit hot toward the end, and the sweat was coming off pretty good. This was one of the more scenic and enjoyable climbs - the greenery was lush and it was quiet and just a very nice place to be with my bike. Here is me at the top. I also would not have gone out and crushed this mountain like I did if I knew what we were doing later, but we will get to that in the next part.
This part of France is VERY Catholic. There are a lot of random cross and Virgin Mary monuments all over the place. Some are big, some are small, but the monuments are everywhere. Also there are a lot of war monuments. Now these aren't enormous American style ones that have old tanks or things like that, sometimes they are just plaques with the names of the dead on them (the ones with the dead children on them are the most depressing). This monument outside of Cazenave is a combination of both a Catholic and war monument.
On one side was a plaque memorializing the WW 1 dead. Four from Cayshax and three from Senconac.
And on the other side was the WW 2 dead. Yep, only one guy from Caychax. I wonder if they had this monument set up after WW 1 and they just affixed this plaque on the other side after WW 2. Probably a good guess.
While the historian in me always likes to stop for monuments and memorials, there are so many of these dotting the countryside of this part of France it got a bit too depressing after a while. Many of the beautiful churches had war dead memorials inside them as well.
6 comments:
I also got depressed looking at all the WW1 memorials.
It hits home how huge the WW1 impact was.
In WW2 probably lots of the populace died as slave labor overseas or through starvation or disruption while under occupation, or sadly through US and English bombing raids.
No memorials for them.
Interesting I don't know how accurate this site is but they tried to distinguish battlefield casualties from civilian casualties in WW2
http://www.worldwar-2.net/casualties/world-war-2-casualties-index.htm
Do you use a heart-rate monitor or a wattage monitor when climbing? Or do you use rpm to determine your workload? I can't seem to convert my inside cycling results into a usable form for outside cycling. Just wondering....
Anon - an excellent question.
This was a subject of a lot of after ride discussions around the table. Some of my tripmates had heartrate monitors and watt meters and the consensus was that if you don't know what to do with the information, it does you no good. ALL of them said it wasn't worth the money for the gadgetry for an amateur cyclist. All of them had no real idea what to do with all of the information. So in this particular case it does you no good.
That said, I did just purchase a new Garmin low end deal so I could get my feet of rise on a ride and I got the optional heart rate monitor. I have no intention of getting a wattage monitor.
My take on all of this is unless you know exactly how to train using all of this data it is no good. Since I ride for enjoyment, the only EASY way I know to ride better is to ride more, faster, duh!
I have certain routes that I can time myself on and that is good enough for me. Inside in the winter on the trainer I can use my average speed and distance just fine. Of course you can do intervals with your heartrate monitor in whatever range you want to be in.
I know from the finite parameters of my basement trainer (time, distance) exactly if one workout was better/harder than the last.
Thanks for your insights. I take a spinning class and the bikes give you RPM, wattage, K-calories, heart-rate, and distance. It's a bit of information overload. My bike doesn't have any of the monitors other than the computer (speed, odometer, etc.). I wear my heart rate montior but it seems that the readings are lower outside on the road than in my class. Seems like a strange result given wind and road coditions etc, and I was considering other monitors.
Anyway, I do appreciate your thoughts and have very much enjoyed your posts and pictures. I'm looking forward to the next installment. It looks like a dream trip to me.
It really is too much information UNLESS you sit down and read about the data and use it to form a real long term workout plan to reach a particular goal.
Actually it makes more sense that your heartrate is lower outside. Riding in place is a very tough activity - you never coast, or stop for cars, or whatever. Just pedal until you stop. Also the cooling effect of rolling along outside is great where if you are sitting in place it is hotter than hell, fans or no. I typically train without fans to make it as tough as possible.
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