Cent Col day seven: A short but tough sawtooth

Another cold start to the day, out of the door and straight up the Col D’Azet. Today is pretty straightforward on paper – climb mountain, go straight down other side, turn corner, repeat 6 times. A mere 167km in total but packing in 4,500m of climb. Up the second climb, the Peyresourde and it’s raining again, everyone cold and wet once more. Today I am riding in full winter kit, including my lovely toasty thermal winter jersey and hat – a lot of people are once again struggling at the foot of the Peyresourde descent and are packed off to a café to warm up but I’m just peachy and plod along. Great to see the whole team on their bikes today - everyone finished the whole day which was fab.

Kelvin "Carrots" here is my personal hero of the trip – he’s raised £35k in sponsorship from friends and businesses all over the Isle of Wight, he’s suffered in more ways than I thought was possible and he’s an inspiration to us all – great job mate and I know you will be back to finish off your unfinished business.

5^th climb of the day was Portet d’Aspet which I’ve climbed before (and which we climbed the other side of last week). From this side however it’s “a bit of a bitch”. The statistics are deceiving – 5km at 9% but hidden in that are multiple ramps up to 17% - trust me after 1,400km in your legs and having climbed 3 everests you don’t want to be seeing this sign.

Also on this climb the beautiful memorial to Fabio Casatelli who was tragically killed whilst descending this hill on the Tour in 1995. Olympic gold medallist and awesome cyclist.

Brief stats: Distance: 167km; Climb: 4,930m (my biggest ever day in the saddle); Cols claimed: 7; Max speed : 66km / h

Garmin track hopefully follows.