Day 1 of Raid Pyrenees: Biarritz to Mauleon

Today's the day: unbelievable! Since signing on in late April, it's been 4+ months we've looked forward to cycling in the Pyrenees. Last night's orientation was useful to prepare us to be moving promptly this morning, aiming for a 9a departure--not 9a start looking for your cycling shoes, throw stuff in your suitcase. This was roll out at 9a, and despite corralling our group being at times like herding cats (or squirrels: VERY unpredictable), we did depart at 9 sharp, thanks in no small part to our excellent tour guides. A word about them:

Constantine and Ewa are a pair in their civilian lives, and for Echappee a pair of servants: making sure we each have what we need, anticipating our needs, ready with water and other beverages, fruit, snacks, electrolytes, bike tweaks. Ewa drove the support vehicle and Constantine rode with us, as in rode herd on us, sometimes from the back, sometimes from the front, sometimes bridging a rider from behind the pack back up to the main group; asking us each how we're doing and feeling, especially important on a day when the temps crept up to over 90F. 

Ewa was ready at every planned stop with goodies ready to serve, and after we took off back down the road again, packed up the van and drove ahead to our next rest and refuel stop. The 3rd guide, Eric, handled logistics: loaded our luggage into the 2nd van to transport to our next hotel (all waiting for us in our assigned rooms. Bravo!) He ordered our catered lunch kits and had them ready to serve at the right stop; he also handles the glitches we're not aware of, so we stay unaware of them. And he scored with today's lunch of quinoa salad and tasty desserts. 

But the ride: it was a thrill to FINALLY be on our bikes, starting with a rollout from the hotel to the beachfront in Biarritz. The trip out of Biarritz was a trip, and I hope the most hazardous riding we'll do this week. I think we were as aggressive as the auto and scooter drivers, and we ended with no hits, no run-ins, and no (chargeable) errors. In a few km's we left the city and suburbs, and entered rolling and very green countryside, a beautiful taste of what was to come. 

 A note here about recording and tracking our rides. Most of us use Garmen or Wahoo devices on our bikes to monitor and record speed, heartrate, cadence, distance and elevation gain and loss, and to leave "breadcrumbs" that can be used to recreate the route after. It serves the truth that "if you don't record the ride, it didn't happen." I changed mine from Imperial to metric units because a) when in Europe, do as the Europeans do, and b) with km's, you get more of then. But I've got to call support for my Wahoo device because even though I switched to metric, my heartrate and cadence didn't change. Huh. 

I felt giddy with the movement on a bike, in FRANCE, for crying out loud! This is my first time to tour outside of the US, and remember what I said a few blogs back about foreign places still having ordinary feeling elements? This was magical for me this morning, and for the whole day. 

I'll race ahead and say today was a hard, hot ride with three challenging climbs, but I rate it a full 11. I felt the joy and exhileration mixed with relief as I rode the final 20k, most of it a flying descent, that was like the first times I finished a fast marathon run. I can't believe I actually get to do this! 

And I suspect the other 11 in our group would say similar things; if not, alexithymic (incapable of feeling) or lying. --That last bit of lingo is in service of my group moniker, "Dr J," since I've been id'd as a psycholigist. I won't correct them that I'm not truly a doctor, I'll play the type. 

But back to the ride: once out of the 'burbs, if that's what they were, true to form for a group of this (ahem) level of maturity, it wasn't too many km's before one of the riders--okay, me--asked "how do your handle nature breaks?" "Let's do one when we get out of town." Perfect. A few km's outside of town we passed a sign for the shrine to Saint Pee (I swear I'm not making this up), which we decided was the perfect spot to stop. I did my usual: 1/4 offset stance still astride the bike, check for wind speed and direction, and plant my verge-side foot for stability. Unfornately this piece of verge was more verte than tarmac, and I rolled, avec velo, into the ditch. "Dr J" was renamed "ditch weed." All that had need, had their need relieved. 

We completed 3 major climbs today: the Oxtondo (that 'x' again, this pronounced "ah-TCHON-doh"), 

568m of gain over 9.3 km, for an everage grade of 5%; Ipseguy, 678m, 5.7km, 5%; and Osquich, 484m, 4.2km, 6%). But those were only 3 of 17 id'd climbs on today's route of 123km and 2080m of elevation gain. Oof! 

But this is what we've all been training for, and for everyone the training worked. Jake is correcting me that he had his usual "crampy and bitchy" episode that landed him in the sag vehicle for the last few km's; Tim, recovering from his May crash, ended the day sagging, too, remarkable for how well he handled the 1st 80% of today's route.

But I'll just pile on the photos, with the prep that there were LOTS of big smiles; 

spectacular scenery; good conversations on the ride; and BIG personal accomplishements for 12 riders.

Constantine, Tour Host/Servant #2, led us to a COLD spring-fed fountain just a few 100m's from our hotel, to dunk our heads and cool off from the ride.