We just keep on climbing! Today, we went up another two famous Tour climbs: the Col du Soulor, and the Col D'Aubisque. Yesterday, we had about 20km before we started climbing. But today, the climbing started immediately - leaving me to struggle after about 5km. I'm not as practised (nor as light) as the others in the group, so what I tend to do is ride out in front from the start, then, as the climb gets steeper, I begin to drift backwards, and find my own pace. As the days went on, I learned to use my gradient and heart rate monitors to keep control of my pace. All the climbs averaged out at over 7% (i.e., the road rises 7 metres every 100 metres). The records show the average gradient for the Sally Gap (from Rathfarnham) is 2.1% over 19km. Compare this to the Col du Tourmalet which has an average gradient of 7.4% over 17.2km. Sally Gap? Piece of cake! Today, the full climb from Argelès to the Aubisque via the Soulor had an average of 4.1% over 30.1km.
I digress. Patrick is the group leader and general organiser of this trip. He's half American, half Corsican - giving him the unusual combination of being brashly multilingual! Patrick is a meticulous leader. He had everything organised to a tee. He would hang back with me on the bike, until he was sure I was ok (not going to have a heart attack), and that I was sure of the route. Then he'd speed up the road, making sure the others were okay. I'd say he probably covered twice what we did with all his toing and froing. Anyway, a few km into the second day, I felt kinda panicky, so I told Patrick that there was no way I would make it to the finish without being eliminated on Sunday. I was looking for his honest opinion at that early stage - it would give me time to prepare for the inevitable. But he gave me a real gee up, and sent me on my way - there'd be no way I'd be eliminated. And that was that. I was happy. What a wonderful climb on Wednesday, up to the Soulor. We (well, I) climbed up under the clover of cloud, then through the cloud and mist to the peak of the Soulor at around 1400 m (Carrauntoohil is 1038m, for reference). As I approcahed the last 2km, the fog got lighter, the sun began to break through and it became hotter, until I was looking over the cloud, and staring at the the higher, snow-covered peaks. What a glorious surprise. The group's van was at the Soulor summit, with sandwiches and such like. However, there was another peak to climb - the Aubisque at around 1700m. Local hero Stéphane Roche won a stage here in 1985. There was a short descent of 200m from the Soulor, back into the misty cloud. All of a sudden, I couldn't see more than 50m in front of me. The side of the mountain was on my left, and I could only see that the banking to my right was steep - very steep. I was protected by a 2 foot wall. Not very comforting. Eventually, I got above the cloud again, but as it got steeper, I became more and more tired. I rested for a bit. A German guy cycled passed by, very slowly, so I took his lead. I travailed up the next 8km or so - wild horses, and English motor homes being the other obstacles on the road. The summit of the Aubisque was obscured around a final bend. Another glorious revelation - a whole range of snowy mountains surrounded us - beautiful! Most of the group was at the top of the summit (the rest had already come back down the same way we climber, and they shouted at me as they tore down the mountain - Allez Conor!). Photos were taken, and then we all descended as a group. It was kinda treacherous, especially a tunnel section (have a look at this clip - a group of Spanish guys going up through the tunnel - it's wet and dark and about 100m long - and don't be fooled by what they're saying - it was steep!). We got back to the van, had some food, before dropping back down the remaining 20km or so to our base. No land speed recods broken today - just 60kph or so down that hill.
I broke a spoke going up that hill. As the day wore on, my back wheel began to buckle under the strain. I took it to the local bike shop for a spoke (Art, one of the organisers said he'd fix it for me - we had full mechanical support). So I rode to the bike shop and walked in with the bike - only to be scolded by the shop owner (a rough translation...):
What are you doing?
What?
You can't bring your bike in here!
But it's a bike shop!
Yes, I know. What's wrong?
I need a new spoke for this wheel...
Well, you hardly need to bring the bike in to the shop to ask me for a new spoke, do you??
Emmmmmmm.... ok...
So, I took the bike back outside, and waited for him to deal with someone else before he had a look at the wheel and then tell me that that he didn't have the right one!! AAAGGH!
There was a group going on a quick visit to Lourdes that afternoon, so I hopped in with them and brought the wheel down to the Grotto, and then everything was great.
Sorry, I mean, I brought the wheel to a bike shop in Lourdes, where the following happened:
Hello.
Hello.
Do you have a spoke for this wheel?
Hang on a second, I'll ask my husband.
(Out walks Hubert Arbès, a former cycling colleague of Bernard Hinault, the French super-duper cyclist of the 70s and 80s). He took the wheel off me, said nothing, walked out into the workshop, stripped the tyre, and tube off, and fixed the spoke, then fixed the buckle - all in about 10 mins.
How much?
I'll ask my husband - Hubert - how much for this (at the top of her voice, and in French)?
€6
€6??? For fixing the spoke and taking the tyre and tube off, and truing the wheel?
Oui.
Nice one! Both me and Mme Arbès were convinced it should have been a lot more, but I didn't protest.
There was a few jerseys and posters and old bikes and awards on display on the shop wall: a yellow jersey from the Tour (not clear if he won it - it could have been a gift from Hinault), and a pennant for the Prix de l'Amabilité, which, roughly translated, means the Prize for being a Friendly Fella on the Tour de France.
Seems like he's kept it up. Merci M. Arbès.
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