Most days when you go out for a ride you
suffer from a bad patch. Usually a period of 15 to 20 minutes where you feel
terrible. Your legs are empty, you are starved of oxygen, and your heart rate
is twice what it should be. When you have been cycling regularly for a while
you get to know this feeling and you know it will pass. In fact, you almost
welcome it like a cold in early summer, because you know once it is out of the
way, you will be ok again. We pulled out of the hotel at the by now familiar
hour of 8.30ish and for roughly 8 hours in the saddle I have been waiting for
that feeling to pass.
That’s not quite true, because the first 15
miles were truly awful, with my legs almost seized solid from the previous
three days with no amount of effort enabling me to hang on to the group, but
the next 20 miles were better. Better in that once we had stopped for a quick
coffee in Ax les Thermes, we turned off the valley road which had been meandering
inexorably upriver, onto the road to Andorra, which had no disguise. Sometimes,
when you know you are in for a beating, it’s easier than the bits that are
supposedly ‘easy’. I took on some Gaviscon, my poor stomach unused to the
constant diet of sickly sweet gels, energy drinks, bars etc and set off up one
of the most amazing valleys we have seen so far – and we have seen some
scenery. The road snakes up at a gradual angle next to a vigorous river, which
has carved its way down the mountain though thickly wooded slopes in a most
pleasing manner.
The first section of the climb was gentle,
the road rising gradually towards the ominous mountains of the Andorra ski
area, towards the Col de Puymorens, actually the highest point we reached this
week due to the Tourmalet being closed. The tunnel, which seems to be shut until
the end of the year, would have made the job easier but looking at ways to make
things easier hasn’t been a strong theme of the week. Getting to the top of this
bad boy has to be one of the highlights of the week – the views were unbelievable
even after a week of jaw-dropping views, but more than that, this was my
Everest. I had to dig quite deep, then dig again, then dig some more to make it
up, but make it up I did. We all did and
it was special to get the cheers from those who finished before me. That will
be most of them then. Of all the climbs, this was the one where I was most grateful to spot the Le Domestique Tours bus, not just for the much needed drinks in the increasingly hot weather and the even more essential encouragement, but also to mark the turn off that I would surely have missed.
Then another big downhill to lunchtime and
after that a strange plateau in the heat of the afternoon. Getting down into a
headwind with only 500m gain but at what expense? We stopped for a mid
afternoon drink but by now my already shattered legs had had more than enough.
Luckily, only 35 odd mikes to go before the coast and pretty much the end of
this insane adventure.
It is now after midnight French time and we
have to do 20km to the official finish in the morning. Luckily, the beer, wine,
pastis, beer and wine that I had earlier have had almost no effect and it
should be fine. I can’t believe it will be anything approaching as tough as we
have done in the last few days and if it is, I can hold onto the thought that
my betters on the cols and in-between bits have been abed a while now while I
have been showing then why I am unlikely to be king of any mountain that
doesn’t involve booze.
So, it looks like I have done it. A daft
amount of miles and climbing for a man of my age and with my preference for a
life of indolence and ease. It has been ridiculously hard at times but the
masculine, testosterone fuelled competitiveness has kept the lid on most of my
usual outpourings. Two things that will live with me pretty much forever. One is
coming down the insanely picturesque valley from La Cabanasse, with the 20 mile
descent. The other, speaking to my mother where for the first time in this male
dominated world of testosterone driven silliness, I spoke to someone who felt
my pain more than I did. Hearing it in her voice made me realise what I have
done to myself for the last 4 days. Insane pain but massive reward. That’s what cycling is all about.
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