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.

Cent Col day six: Some cold giants

After a fab and well earned rest day everyone is looking and feeling much happier, batteries and engines having been given an brief opportunity to recharge.

Only a mere 6 cols today but that includes two of the giants of the Pyrenees, the Aubisque and the Tourmalet, both very famous mountains. Out of the door and alas into rain. It starts off biblically wet then thankfully eases off to merely torrential before easing off once again to heavy rain. Up the valley we gradually climb for 40km and then onto the Aubisque for a 15km climb averaging 8%, a long hard slog up the mountain and pretty soon into the cloud base.

When we left Oloron our altitude was 200m and the weather was “wet and miserable”. Once we got up above 1500m however it gets pretty severe and at the top of the Aubisque at 1700m it is immediately obvious that we have some potentially serious issues with the temperature down to just above freezing and the rain still falling. Being cold when you are cycling is fine (so long as your core is warm). Being wet is also fine (again, so long as your core is dry). Being both cold and wet and having to do a 40km descent with the added windchill factor and your body not doing any work to keep warm and you very quickly are talking hypothermia, not really what you want when picking your way down the side of the mountain on a bike.

It does however show you what the elements can throw at you – a few days ago it was 40 degrees, now it’s just above freezing. Phil immediately goes into safety mode, depositing Scott, Jenny and Kelvin into the sag wagon in order to bunch the riders up a bit and abandoning plans to go up the Tourmalet. Tourmalet is a further 400m higher in altitude and there was a significant risk of snow – add that into our already bad mix and the decision to scrap it was easy. Three times now I’ve been here with the Tourmalet on my route, only once have I done the climb. That’s life in the mountains.

Lunch was a real life saver. We have a mobile lunch wagon provided by Claude the Butler http://www.claudthebutler.co.uk/about-us/ – it’s awesome – the best tasting freshest food you could imagine – today they served up a lovely spicy soup with lentils whilst the doctor did her best to warm up the riders who were suffering the most. Everyone was shivering, some almost uncontrollably.

This is lunch (on a much nicer day...) with the Butlers van in the background.

After lunch thankfully not only does the rain stops but the sun comes out again (but we could still see up above us at altitude it was still pretty nasty) and a couple of hours later we’re all happy once again, tabbing on a large detour around the mountain picking up a small bonus col (and getting a bit lost) en route. Most people also missed the last climb of the day, Pla d’Adet as it was very late in the day but a few real heroes went up it.

My Garmin was also suffering from the harsh elements today, its battery life severely shortened by the cold so no track as I turned it off but from comparing notes we did somewhere in the region of 225km with a climb of circa 3,800m. Cols claimed: 5

Cent col day 5: col du buggery

The last day before our rest day and a few people are starting to struggle. Colin (day one crash) got back on his bike yesterday which thrilled everyone but alas he only lasted the morning before jumping in the sag wagon with a migraine and still very sore wrist. He's now gone home, he'll be back next year. Today Jenny made it till lunchtime before conceding defeat for the day, Kelvin had had a worstening knee all day before being told to stop by Phil at 4pm - Kelvin has been one of the superstars of the trip but he could have really injured himself badly (overcompensating etc) if he had kept going. We were all rooting for him and it broke my heart when he came past me in the Doctors car. Scott was also struggling with general fatigue and was stopped at 6pm.

On the subject of support it really has been fantastic. Phil rides the whole course and generally keeps an eye on the tail of the group or with anyone he has particular concerns about - he's very good at differentiating between someone like me who isn't all that fast but will (given enough hours in the day) get to the end without need for support and some other people who may be ahead of me but are struggling (either mentally or physically) and need support. Having a doctor on the course at all times may sound excessive but we are in such such remote areas that it could make the difference - Colins crash happened in the middle of a populated area but sometimes we go for hours without seeing a house or person - the Doctor also acts as the "sweeper" ensuring that everyone is accounted for - a sensible measure.

Anyway, back to the cycling. Big big day ahead, 18 cols with 4,700m of climb - everyone very apprehensive leaving today because the 30km descent I just talked about at the end of day 4 - yup, we were going back up it by a slightly different route - a mammoth 1,400m (almost a mile) vertical climb up to Col de Pierre St Martin. After missing a col on day two (knackered by the heat) and another on day three (too damn slow to finish before dinner time) I was determined to finish today but I knew with the amount of climbing it would be a little touch and go. The doctor told me at lunchtime to stop "breathing my bread" which I think meant to slow down and eat it rather than trying to snort it...

Lovely picture taken by the Dr of Dave and I at the top of Port Larrau.
















Into Spain for a few hours and back out again onto the Col Du Bagaurgui - or, as it has been christened by many riders - the Col Du Buggery. It was, frankly, really nasty bitch of a climb, it just got steeper and steeper and steeper. And steeper. And a bit more. And one last little bit. Trust me, after 900km and 2 vertical everests in your legs the very very last thing you want to see is this - next km at 13%. 13% sounds like a small number - trust me, it's not, it's really horrible.




















One last col of the day, Col du Burinolazte, a very rural climb up into the mist. Another real tough climb, not helped by being in thick thick cloud - at least if you can see the road ahead you can mentally prepare yourself for a real tough bit but when you can only see 20 metres it's pretty annoying to suddenly find yourself going from a 5% cruise to a nasty 15% ramp without warning (oddly enough everything below about 5% now feels flat - and anything flat feels downhill, it's a really strange sensation). Descending down the same is also pretty "interesting" - full brakes all the way down (which you have to be careful about otherwise you overheat the wheels and can explode the tyres which is not want you want happening at 50km / hr aproaching a hairpin in a mountain...), picking your way down very slowly.

So then at 160km the work was done, just a 40km cruise home, or so we thought. Except that it was now getting dark and Dave didn't have a front light and my back light stopped working earlier in the day - we were told in no uncertain terms that we were not going to be allowed to continue if it got dark (which I agree with) and if the sag wagon caught us we would be in it. I have never been in the sag wagon in my life and I sure as hell wasn't going in it today either. Both Dave and I "rode like we've never ridden before" - it was an odd sensation to be looking over my shoulder not at another rider wondering if I can hold them off but to see if there was a set of headlights on a van bearing down on me - we both made it back (just...) and won the daily "courageous rider" award for our efforts. Rest day tomorrow, well earned...

Summary - 200km, a mammoth 5,000m of ascent over 18 cols.

Full details:

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Cent col day 4: million mile views / there were tears

Out of the door and immediately we start climbing, a 1000m vertical ascent up the Col de Spandelles. A few of the faster group joined us for the first few km including Phil the organiser and rode the beginning with us, it was lovely to have a good pace being tapped out and people to chat to to pass the time up the climb. The faster group eventually drifted off the front leaving the laggards to do the rest on our own, we stayed together most of the rest of the way up just chatting about rubbish.


Onto the Col de Marie Blanque, 11km climb at 8% average - over the top and one of my favourite ever descents, I love descending and even blatted past some of the fast group on the way down - hitting a new personal best high speed of 90km / hr (55mph). 55mph may not seem very fast in a car but on a piece of metal that weighs 7kg and tyres a couple of cm wide it's an amazing experience, I spent a good couple of minutes with goosebumps on my arms and tears in my eyes on the way down. Interesting the stupid garmin computer shortly updated the max speed to an unlikely 200km / hr...


Onto the Col Du Soudet after lunch, a long long long climb, 23km in total with the middle 9km at a leg busting average of 9km. This was a real struggle for me - having been climbing already for 9km at a pretty tough grade it then kicks up to "eye bulging" grade for a further 9km, then back to "this hurts" grade for the last 5km. Many people have commented that this is one of the toughest climbs out there and I wholly agree with them. One saving grace was that whilst it was *hot* at the start the clouds came in a little on the way up and cooled things down a little.


Had some random french tourist snap my picture at the top.




























The views and scenery from the top were really astonishing. I hadn't seen a car for several hours, you are the best part of a mile in the sky, all you can hear were cowbells and you could see for a million miles, just breathtaking. This is why it's all worth it, it's just the mutts nuts.




























Finished the day off with a 30km descent into a very rural Auberge, staying 4 to a room in bunk beds in the middle of nowhere - an "interesting" experiance. 15 cols bagged toda, woo hoo.


Summary stats: Distance 178km, climb 4,400m, max speed 90km (or 200, apparently).



Full details here:


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Cent col day 3: Another col missed

Dinner last night, everyone looking really smashed by the heat, people falling asleep in their soup. I'm feeling shattered and now we've got one of the hardest days of the tour ahead of us, 200km, 9 cols with a total of 5,200m of climb - that's *immense*, more than I've ever done before.

The weather however is much more to my liking, nice and cool. The laggards group is now 6 strong - myself, Dave, Jenny, Scot, Kelvin & Bob, out of the door at 7.15am, 30 minutes ahead of the fast group and straight onto at 14km climb up Peyersourde, quickly into the cloud base. I made it my personal mission to get up that damn hill before any of the fast group came through and managed it with relative ease, although I was still at that stage the last of the laggards. It seems I take longer to warm up each day, the laggards seem to always drift away ahead of me at the beginning of the day and end up behind me towards the end.

















Down the other side and up the Aspin, a stunningly pretty 12km climb at 6% which I did on the Raid, this time enhanced by a bit of cloud for effect:
















After the Aspin it got "a bit rural", a 3km climb up a mountain logging track, hitting 13% in many places, much of the road unmade. This was, to put it politely "a bit of a bitch" and a tough tough few KM's.

Jenny is still suffering badly, struggling to eat properly which leads to a lack of stamina and "bonking", a real nasty viscous circle. Today she only made it to lunchtime before jumping into the sag wagon. By comparison though I was finally feeling pretty good for the first time in 2.5 days, feeling happy to be on a bike. At one stage I saw Kelvin slowly catching me up a hill and felt a surge of energy, stepping on the peddles and blatting it up the rest of the hill. I didn't mean to do it to drop him, it all just seemed to happen at the same time. He told me later "I saw you there one minute, then you just vanished!".

The final climb of the day was Hautacam which I went up on the Etape. Unlike yesterday when I knew I didn't have it in me to do the final climb today I knew I did have it in me, indeed I felt great - however time was somewhat against me and I knew if I started it then I wouldn't be getting into the hotel until gone dark and gone dinner. Kelvin had managed to miss the final feedstop and was 15 minutes ahead of me, he went up Hautacam and arrived home to a heroes welcome, great job, I chose not to, much to my hindsighted regret.


Saw this sign on a cycle path on the way home, a warning sign for a 3% slope, thought that was quite cute (for the record it was actually 4% for a few metres...).





















Summary stats: Distance 160km, climb 3,800m, max speed cols bagged 8 (out of 9).

Full details herewith:

http://

Cent day two: hot hot hot

An early start to what was billed to be a hot day, rolling out of the hotel at 6.45am in the pitch dark, lights a blazing, a gentle 25km roll down the valley along the same road as I went down on the Raid Pyrenee in 2009, riding alongside Dave who like me was one of the self appointed laggards of this trip.

Along comes the first climb of the day, a 17km climb at 6% up Col De Port, one which I had done before and knew not to be too bad. It's difficult to describe to non cyclists what mountain climbing is like - a good comparison would be to walk over a railway bridge or motorway bridge - the gradient up them is usually around 6 to 8% - except they go on for 100m - the mountain does the same for 17,000m - just relentless endless climbing. By the end your eyes hurts, your brain hurts and your lungs are screaming for you to stop. And you do that several times in a day.

The self appointed fast group showed us little mercy, all cruising on past us before the top of Col De Port, having covered the same 47km in some 45 minutes less than the 2 and a bit hours it took us. How humbling.

Next up the Col de Peguerre, a really really nasty 3km climb at 13%. In cycling terms anything above 10% is "into the red zone" (self obvious). This climb just killed me, smashed me to pieces.

Through to lunch and by now it's hotting up on what should be an easy ish 13km at 5% up Col de Portet. Easy except by now it is around 35 degrees, hitting a max of 40 degrees on one section. Yeah, 40 degrees and there I am suffering like crazy up the side of a mountain praying that every hairpin I go around the next little stretch of road has a little tree on it where I can stop for a few seconds in the relatative shade and cool down. Except you go around the hairpin and nope, no shade ahead - it really was the hardest climb I've ever done, truly brutal heat.

I knew at the start of the day that if it was a hot as had been predicted then I'd be suffering badly by the end of the day. It's OK to suffer badly on a one day ride but on a ten day tour it will take you the next day or two to recover, you just end up blowing yourself up a day or two down the road because of what you did to yourself previously. I had decided before the final food stop that I was going to take the easy option home - it missed out the final col of the day which was a pretty nasty one and I led a little mini train of Jenny and Scott home the flat way. Not brilliant to miss out on one of the mere 106 cols on the trip but you gotta know your limits.

Managed to turn my garmin off for an hour by mistake without noticing so stats are wrong (and the max speed is clearly a glitch). I think proper stats are: Distance 200km, climb 3,200m, cols 9 (out of 10).

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Cent Col day one: Poor colin.

So here we are, 9 months of training covering 7,000km including 4 big big weekends in Wales and Yorkshire, 9 months of finishing almost all my Audax rides in the top few riders and it’s apparent within 5 minutes of arriving that I’m way out of my league. There’s one guy who recently came home 7^th in the Etape (amateur stage of the tour de france) out of 5,000 riders. And he’s not the strongest… All the talk is of brake compounds, heart-rate-zone-cum-power-level-cum-anaerobic training etc etc. Phil the organiser must have climbed well over 1,000 cols in the last few years, more no doubt than anyone else in the world, and he's being routinely dropped on the climbs by half a dozen of the guys here - there really are some strong strong guys in this group of 19 riders.

We roll out of Rivesaltes behind Phil, the organiser, he was going to lead us gently to the first feed station at 50km to give everyone a chance to chat together and get to know each other a bit. We are in the season of grape picking and the grape juice sloshes out of the back of the tractor trailers and onto the road, leaving a greasy slimy trail and smash, 7km in and one poor guy, Colin, goes down on a roundabout, smashing his face and wrist, giving himself mild concussion and cracking his handlebars. Poor poor soul, a year of training and he lasts 7km, going down on an innocuous roundabout because of some grape slime. We all feel really horrible for him knowing it could have happened to any of us.

First feed stop over, Phil let’s us go at our own pace and that’s pretty much the last I see of anyone all day – as the day hots up and up and up into the mid 30’s I fade away and away and away. I just can’t ride hard in the heat, it saps me hugely. If it’s going to be like this all week then I’m going to really suffer.

Chipping away at my own pace over the cols, the highest of which is Col de Port De Pailheres, a 13km climb at 8% rising up to 2,001m altitude I suffer in the heat all afternoon long, finally finishing at 7.15pm after 12 hours in the saddle covering 14 cols and a big big 4,500m of climb. Each of these days on this challenge is simply huge, bigger than any tour de france day, as big as largest ever ride in my life – and we’ve got 10 of them back to back. This is going to be “interesting”.

Brief stats: Distance: 204km; Height gained: 4,500m; Cols claimed: 14; Max speed 64km / hr; Max temp: 36 degrees. Details herewith.

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