Etape 4 Raid Pyrenees St Lary to St Girons, with 3 climbs: Col de Pyresourde, Mente, and Portet d’Aspet

First a word about Échappée, the name of our cycling tour company.

Their name translates from the French as "escape," of which I can think of a few applications: as of or pertaining to a holiday, or any getaway from the routine; or "an escape in cycling is when a small group of riders breaks away from the main group of riders to gain an advantage. . . . Escapes can be planned or spontaneous, and often involve a mix of experienced and inexperienced riders." I like the first and last meanings best, because this is a holiday that's an escape from most elements of life as I know it back home; and the last meaning, because it exactly describes our group. For some of us the decision to sign on to the Raid was spontaneous, others a long deliberation, and we are a mix of varying cycling experience. Échappée!

I've been thinking during this trip of a big downside to a cycling tour: we just haven't had time to explore the ville and countryside that we've passed through. I swore before I started that I would not just blast through at the maximum speed my velo and legs would support, rather to stop and smell the photos as often as I could. Sometimes I just can't: when I've some minimum momentum going on a long uphill climb, I don't want to stop. 

Many of my comrades on wheels seem adept at pulling out their phones and shooting while riding. I hesitate to do much of that, as I promised Carrie I wouldn't take unnecessary chances. "Unnecessary" is open to interpretation. I found if I eliminated the fingerprint or coded screen lock, I could pull out my phone, flick it on and hit the camera app button with a thumb, and point and shoot in motion. I won't do it--honest, I won't--when cars are around, or on a fast descent, or when riding in tight formation with other cyclists.

But I am pulling off some passable shots of the passing countryside and (sometimes an accidental selfie), 

and at times without stopping. But sometimes you just have to stop. 

I compare this tour with the number of self-guided walking tours that Carrie and I have taken and thoroughly enjoyed, where we're traveling at a fraction of cycling speed, which allows us to examine--and photgraph--the landscape in micro detail if we wish, because it just doesn't go by that quickly. Less ground covered, closer observation; vs much more terrain traversed, with much less fine-grained looking around. At this moment I wouldn't say that one is clearly superior to the other, they're just different. 

This morning my disrupted inner clock--whether by time zone or a too rich, too late dinner the night before--woke me much earlier than usual, and I dressed and tiptoed through the nearly-silent hotel 

and out into the ville of St Lary. 

It's gorgeous, and especially in the predawn light. I walked around a bit, just looking and listening, 

with not much to hear on an early Sunday morning except a few birds and the boulangerie delivery van. 

One pool of light was in front of a pattisserie where I waited for it to open at 7 so I could get a cup of coffee. Mmmm! They don't make bad coffee here, not that I've found, not even from a machine. When I returned to the hotel I found a tall paper flour sack filled with still warm croissant and baguettes that had been delivered for our breakfast, a last third of a triple play for my early rising. 

In another half hour the kitchen was ready to serve another more than adequate petit dejeuner to start our day, with all of the usuals en France: excellent coffee, an assortment of pastries, fresh fruit, yogurt, meats and cheese, fresh baguettes, and an assortment of honeys and jams.

I endorse the sentiment on the inside jam lid: "EAT WELL, LOVE LIFE."

Suit up in our kits, pack our luggage and deliver it to the lobby,

fill water bottles, apply sunscreen and butt balm for the long riding day ahead, 

find our bikes, and another day in the saddle was underway. 

I don't know if our guides plan it this way, but each day so far we've had a flat rollout of a dozen or so kilometers before we started any climbing. 

Had we had to push hard or fast right away, our legs would have rebelled; an easier warmup seems to loosen everything up. This was demonstrated in spades later in the day: after each tough climb we get a long descent of about equal distance without any pedaling, but if a sudden rise in the road requires a burst of effort, our legs do yell. When mine do, I've learned that if I just ease off, spin easily, if at a slower speed, for a couple hundred meters, when I push them again, they work! I'm not sure if it's a matter of clearing lactic acid, restoring blood flow, or some other element of physiology, but damn! it works. Lessons learned, confidence gained. 

Aesthetically these rollouts were gorgeous, with the early light, and usually through a valley, 

often near a stream, and running through little villages and bergs at a still-sleepy time of day. And we needed the confidence to climb again as we launched into

the Col de Pyresourde climb, 858m in 18km. That's a long climb, not as difficult as some we'd done earlier, but the day was already hot and sunny. 

All completed the climb once again, 

no surprise, and we were drawn upward by the promise of hot crepes and coffee at the summit. 

We were relatively early to the top and got our orders in, and the crowd grew and grew. 

One thing that hasn't grown much that I can tell is my waistline, even though I feel like I've become an eating machine: wonderful breakfast buffets, fabulous dinners, just-what-we-needed box lunches, and endless supplies of fresh fruit, cookies, muffins, energy bars, energy gels, sandwiches. My bike computer thinks I'm burning an extra 3500 calories/day (which I think is an underestimate) added to a normal base for an older male of 2000-2500, and you're talking some serious intake. After a meal I feel like the python that ate the pig, and a few hours later-- no bulge, just more hunger. If an army marches on its stomach, then a peloton rides on its--wait for it--stomach. 

We left the Col for another flying descent, 10-15km to match the distance of the climb. What goes up, must come down, eh? Riding down the mountain is-- fast. Another promise to Carrie: be careful on the descents, I've got nothing to prove. Correct. I think we're all becoming skilled at descents, with excellent coaching from Constantin who knows the road well enough to warn us of rough pavement, narrowing of the roadway, twistier than usual roads. 

On a long straightaway with clear views we can let 'er rip, and watch the speedo climb to 35, 40, 50 kph, then braking significantly approaching a turn, leaning into the inside of the curve, watching for oncoming traffic, then release the brakes exiting the turn and let gravity have its way. You can't accelerate faster by pedal power than gravity will propel you, and you can't pedal fast enough to match or increase your speed. Those of us equipped with mapping computers can see the turns well in advance, and anticipate how sharp a turn, up to a full hairpin, and thus how early and how hard to brake prior. A tighter tuck of torso, arms and legs may let you gain on the rider in front of you; sitting more upright and flaring your knees like airbrakes may slow you down and increase the distance to the next rider. In any case, any outer layer that's less than skin tight while flap like a flag in a stiff breeze. 

And downhill flying isn't all easy: the road vibration is really pronounced through the handlebars and into hand and wrists; shifting leg position to adjust balance for the turns is through a limited range, so it's easy to become stiff. It's constant, constant attention to the roadway, not much looking around, not even for bird- or whale-watching (family joke: I'm the one who spouted a whale spouting out in the Pacific while driving a rental car down the twisty Big Sur highway). The few times my speedo told me I was at 60+, it felt way faster than 30-something mph back on Dane County blacktops. 

The wind chill at those speeds is such that we often put on an extra wind layer before heading down, else you can be awfully cold before reaching the bottom. 

We usually regroup at the bottom, so no one feels like they have to descend faster than they want to, and it gives us all a breather to shed a layer and catch our breath. 

Today, post-Pyresourde, we had another valley 10+ km to recover before starting the next climb, the deceptively short but exceptionally hard col de Mente 5.8 829m in 9.3 km, with an average 8.6% grade. That's almost the same elevation gain as the Pyresourde in a bit more than half the distance. 

And 8.6% is the average; there were a few pops of 12-14%, enough to make the occasional 5% stretch seem flat, and time to shift to a higher gear. 

While climbing a difficult pitch like these, I do as I do in many situations in life: I keep my feelings, including any suffering, to myself and shut out all but the essential sensory inputs. I mostly don't want someone urging me along, or chatting me up while riding side-by-side. I want to concentrate on what's going on inside of me physically and mentally, and meet the challenge. Just ask Carrie about the good and not-so-good parts of that preference. But I was thinking of you during this climb, Carrie, and your description of me as "dogged;" I won't quit until I've found it, fixed it, figured it out, or finished it. Today it got me up the climb; I would not quit, and I didn't. Some of you who have tackled hard things, voluntarily or not, know something of the feeling of accomplishment that comes with finding, fixing, figuring or finishing. It has brought me to tears as I finished each of these climbs. It's a big part of why I'm doing it.

The route sections between climbing and descending are often through valleys--what else are there in the mountains? We had such an interlude between descents and climbs where the terrain was mostly level or slightly rolling, and we took advantage of the space between the Pyresourde and the Mente to make a fast traverse, in this case a pace line moving at 35-45 kph, and headed most of the time by Constantin, our "domestique"--that's the team rider who sacrifices his or her own energy to "pull" the group by boring a hole in the wind for the rest of the group to follow. Drafting this way can save the following riders as much of 15% of their effort, and I found myself cruising fast with my HR barely touching 100 in what serves as a recovery period. We covered more than 20km in less than 30 minutes, rolling through small villages spaced apart by agricultural area. We saw some of what the media are highlighting as dying villages, many boarded up buildings in areas people have left for cities and aother more populated and attractive areas. But beautiful nonetheless. 

And then the Mente, short but steep, and by the time we reached the top very hot and very tired, many of us rated this the 2nd hardest climb so far, behind only the Marie Blanque of our second day. 

Ewa had preceeded us with the van and opened a wonderful spread of food and drinks in a shady, breezy areas at the top. It was cool enough in contrast to the heat of the climb that we had to pull on jackets to ward off the chill, and added to the food, drink and rest recharged us for the final legs of the day's route: another fast, flying, jacketed descent and a final 20km dash through a valley to St Giron and the Hotel Beurogard, our night's lodging. 

 

This hotel had a pool which a number of us used to cool off and chill, in both meanings of the word, with a cold Leffe Blonde (that's a beer, not a person). I was so eager to cool off I dove in and pulled a few strokes--and realized I hadn't taken out my hearing aids. Sacre bleu! I surfaced and yelled, and without my glasses or contacts (all these damned adaptive devices! Welcome to post-middle age.) I couldn't even see where they'd fallen, but Dick, bless his hardy and helpful soul, dove in and surfaced with both of them, and both still working! The day's minor miracle. Merci, mon ami! We walked as a group the 1km or so to the village center for a long, leisurely outdoor dinner, great conversation, and a great capstone to a terrific day. 

Only two more of these as a group! I think I'm beginning to grieve the coming end to the exceptional tour. Tomorrow: St Girons to Ax-les-Thermes, a short(!) day of 1826m over 99km with 3 minor climbs.