Au revoir Haute Pyrynes

This one was hard - quite a long steep section.





The Pyrynes have made us toil and they have made us struggle. They have made us sweat and they have made us shiver. They have thrilled us and they have frightened us (depending on whether the decents were dry or wet and foggy). Above all they have made us stronger and we love them for that. I, for one, will return to these fine mountains and ride these roads again.

We left our hotel at 06:15 this morning and were at the top of our first col before 07:30. By the top of our third (and last significant) col for the day we had climbed 2095m in 57km.

There hasn't been a lot of idle time on this trip so far but with yesterday's ride being so short we had some spare time to look over the prioritised list of cols on the 100 cols website. I found it really encouraging to see that we have already done quite a few of the hardest cols, including No. 2 on the list, the Tourmalet. Only Mont Ventoux of our 100 cols is considered to be harder than the Tourmalet.

This afternoon we stopped at a bar for a coffee, as we often do and, as we were leaving, I asked the bar lady to top up my water bottle. There was a lot of 'exclaiming' coming from the far end of the bar, together with popping, hissing and squirting noises and when I looked across she was trying fill the bottle with one of those pressure taps (like they have for beer) through the little bite valve you use to drink through. Needless to say the water was going everywhere. I'm guessing this lady doesn't do much sporting stuff 😂.

Today we have cycled 156km and we have climbed 2751m.

So far Steve and I have been completely dry (alcohol wise, I mean). Tonight, resting up and meeting Steve's Lions Club contacts at Limoux, we are nominally halfway through our trip in distance (less so in climbing) - I think I might allow myself a beer 😃.



www.justgiving.com/fundraising/100-cols-for-cancer