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The Pyrenees

A few years ago I had a brainstorm and decided to go and watch a stage of the Tour du France. The optimum seemed to me to be to be a mountain stage and I had never been to the Pyrenees, and of course if it’s to be the Pyrenees than it has to be la Col du Tourmalet. After much planning we decided to go down by overnight train and then to cycle up to a base camp at Luz-St-Saveur, from there we would do some day trips and catch le tour before heading off fully loaded to catch a few more cols.

The journey down was a bit of a nightmare, after packing the bikes into bags at St Malo we caught the train to Rennes and changed for Paris. For some reason I thought that the two railway stations were close to each other not opposite sides of Paris, so it was a bit of a shock to find that we had to get across the metro system with bikes and kitbags full of panniers. We got the station and tried to find our cabin the train was about half a mile long and seemed to stretch on forever. Steve M went and got some food and water from a small shop and I tried to fathom out the booking system; eventually we found a cabin and piled in. Later some Americans also came in which was a bit of a surprise but we managed, they had had no food or water for most of the day so we shared ours. Then the nice ladies arrived to tell us that we were in the wrong half of the train! What was worse the two halves were not connected, so we waited for the next stop and tried to work out where to spend the night, the conductor found us a cabin but I couldn’t work out if he was telling me that we had the cabin to ourselves or if there was someone joining later and so spent the night waking up every time the train stopped.

Finally we got to Lourdes and exited bleary eyed from the train it was about 6am and we had been travelling since 6am the previous morning. Having put the bikes together and loaded up we set off to find some breakfast, we headed south-ish and stopped at Argeles-Gazost which was a pleasant town built up of the hillside after a monster French Breakfast we headed up to Luz-St-Saveur which was to be base camp for the next few days. The campsite was quite pleasant and had good showers, we had bought a reflective sheet with us and used this to make a sun shelter and cook area. The next day we did the Col du Gavarnie unloaded as a warm up it was warm, about 31 degrees when we set off but the temperature steadily dropped as we climbed, it was very sunny and we met various sports cyclists heading up the switchbacks were very dramatic and gave us some exciting stages on the descents. As we approached the Spanish border the road just sort of petered out but we carried on to the end anyway and took the obligatory summit shot. The descent was well worth the effort and we were back in the town in 40 minutes, which was good considering it took 4:50 to get to the top, Steve M caused some upset by overtaking cars on the way down. We found a bar and sat in the shade for a well earned drink.

The next day we headed up the Col du Tourmalet to find a good spot to see the tour, we stopped just below Bareges on some switchbacks figuring this should give us a good view. The usual caravan of sponsors and weird and wonderful vehicles came through and then about twenty minutes later the first riders came up, considering they had already done one col and had to do another after the Tourmalet they looked quite fresh. Hearing the cheering coming up the hill, then joining in and then hearing it head on up behind us I realised that these guys cycled in a sea of noise, at least on stages like this, there was a little bubble of cheering fans urging them on all the way up. After a while we realised that that must be it and started down, we were immediately whistled at by the Gendarmes and waved to the side a lone rider was staggering up closely followed by the broom wagon as he came along side us he packed and was led weeping into the wagon, head down completely done in, I think he got the biggest cheer of the day but it fell on deaf ears. The Descent was fun with lots of bikes heading down the same way of course it turned into a race and Steve M and I roared in to Luz-St-Saveur overtaking several cars on the way.

The next day we followed the course of le Tour up la Col du Tourmalet and all I can say is that it deserves its reputation; it just keeps coming at you getting steeper and steeper at every turn. Steve M went ahead quite quickly and then stopped every so often to allow me to catch up, I just headed for the next bit of shade and a chance to rest. Finally after about 5 hours we reached the col and had a well earned (expensive) coke and I vowed I would never, ever do that again! After the obligatory summit shots of me and Steve M we set off on a spectacular descent, one of the things that we had noticed earlier in the trip is that the temperature does not rise steadily on the way down, but jumps up every so often, I’m not sure what causes it but it is very noticeable. The smells that came up from the fields was fantastic, all sorts of wonderful smells from the various crops even though harvest was still some way off. At the bottom of the hill we stopped at Ste-Marie-de-Campan for some lunch, there was a fountain with lovely cold water as well and we filled up with that. While there we noticed that there was a hostel type of place that seemed to cater for cyclists so we asked if there was a room available but they were fully booked but they pointed us in the direction of a campsite so we set off. The campsite was fairly full as well but the girl managed to fit us in at a reduced price because of the small pitch, after a good shower and a meal cobbled up out of what we could find in the camp shop we settled down, as we wanted an early start in the morning.

The climb up to la Col du Aspin was easier than the Col du Tourmalet but still a stiff climb. The early part of the climb was most noticeable because of the life-size stuffed dolls that lined the route! They were bizarre. Breakfast was found at a sort of trading station in a high valley near a place called Espiadet, we sat in the sun and ate bread and cheese and drank loads of water. The main issue with the higher parts of the climb, which were not too steep, was the lack of air due to the trees, there was no breeze at all. We were passed as usual by the sports cyclists who gave us words of encouragement (at least I think it was encouragement) including a surprising number of women, the men as usual included all ages all riding smart lightweight bikes. On this stage Steve M was struggling and I soon left him behind, his knees were giving him some trouble, he said it wasn’t from the climbing but from the mad peddling going down faster. At the top of the col we chatted to some of the other riders in pidgin French they were taking a lot of interest in the bikes and the load we were carrying, one of them kept saying “poids” and after a while I realized that he wanted to know how heavy the bikes were about 25 kgs plus the bike (about 18kgs in touring setup) he through his arms in the air “ mon dieu, c’est formidable” and grabbed my legs indicating that they looked too skinny to push that weight up the hill. I pointed at the gearing and indicated that the granny gear was used a lot.

We also met up with a British couple that were heading for the Mediterranean, but the girl was complaining at the hills and wanted to go around the mountains, indicating a dual carriageway that looked like a better deal to her! If anything the descent down to Arreau was even more spectacular than the one off the Tourmalet, at one point I was trying to work out how to get hold of the emergency services as Steve M tried to squeeze between a wall a Mercedes and a large touring motor bike that had decided to overtake at that moment, fortunately he made it through but I couldn’t see how. In Arreau we had the usual celebratory coke and a bun and had a wander around the town, which had a large market on at the time, while sitting down Steve M announced that he was in quite a lot of pain and didn’t feel he could manage another coll, after discussing the options we decided that we would try to get back to St Malo and so set off for Lannemezan to sort out trains. The ride along to Lannemezan was hot and uncomfortable with little shade we found a wooded area to have lunch before setting off for the last leg. The staff at the station were very helpful and sorted us out indicating that we needed to get to Tarbes for the night train, then we settled in at the bar across the road and ate rolls and ice-cream and drank coke or beer.

At Tarbes we met up with the staff from hell as well as the staff from heaven, the lady in the ticket desk made no effort at all to try to understand us and rattled off a burst of French that I had no chance of understanding. On the other hand the “chef du train” couldn’t be more helpful, and it wasn’t even his bit of the train. This chap was the conductor for the first class bit of the train and pointed us in the direction of the second class conductor but we couldn’t find him, by this time we were getting a little panicky as it was getting late and we didn’t know if there were any berths free. At this point Steve M wandered over and spoke to our friendly conductor, then came back saying that he had upgraded us to first class! The conductor took one look at our baggage and said we wouldn’t get it in the cabin, so I went to investigate; it looked possible to me so on we got. As we were packing stuff in the conductor looked over my shoulder and said that it wouldn’t do and showed me another cabin that had a different configuration, it didn’t look much better to me but I moved the stuff over anyway. As I stacked the last bag in he shut the door and locked it and showed me back next door, we were getting TWO cabins, this was more like it! Shortly after we set off he knocked on the door and gave some bottled water, this was luxury. Even so it was not a comfortable night, I don’t think I will take the sleeper again, next time I’ll travel by TGV much more civilised.

In Paris we decided not to risk the metro again and put the bikes back together to ride over to the Montparnasse station, in itself an interesting experience, after several wrong turns we made it and stripped the bikes down again to bag them for the train.