Cycling The Pyrenees – Part Three
August 1, 2024 § 1 Comment
As I write about this two years later I find that as I open up the memories, there is a lot of detail there to harvest. In Part I I talked through how I came to do this, and in Part II I covered getting here. Now it’s the morning of 3 October, 2022 and we awake in the seaside resort of Saint Jean de Luz in the southwest of France near the Spanish border and we are going to embark on the Peter Cossins researched Ride across the Pyrenees West to East to the Mediterranean Sea.
I was up early, I got all my stuff packed and together and wandered down for some breakfast where there was no one who spoke any English, so I just nodded when they said anything, and I was able to eat. I assumed the room included breakfast. Maybe I was being asked for my room number. Augie and Tom followed soon after, and were given the same query, to which they both shrugged and nodded as well. I cannot remember if we had anything to settle up when we left, but soon we were out on the street with our bikes ready to ride. Now, if you clicked through to see the route, you will see that the route starts pretty much at the Spanish border in the town of Hendaye, and we were 10 kilometers North of that, so first we had to head backwards along the route down to Hendaye. The route was a mix of road and bike lane where the bike lane wasn’t always in the best of condition, and was actually a both direction bike lane, but we made it to the border town, and went all the way to the inlet where Tom said something about Christopher Columbus having stood out on the point and formulated his idea that to get to the Indies, you needed to sail West, and not South around Africa. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I am willing to go with his version. Why CC would have been in that area and came up with the plan rather than much further West in Spain is a mystery to me, but so be it.
We snapped a photo, and then we started the actual trek. As I write this almost 2 years later, I know that the 2023 Tour de France started in San Sebastian in Basque country, and eventually wound its way into France here in Hendaye, and up the same street we were riding along at that moment. I hadn’t a clue then, but knowing it now does tickle me a bit. We rode the entire 10K back the way came, past our hotel, and then finally out of Saint Jean de Luz and into the lower foothills of the Eastern Pyrenees. Our goal for the day was the town of Saint Jean Pied du Port, a pretty medieval looking town that is actually one of the main starting points for the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. It’s actually the Western most, and therefore most popular place to start that hike, though to be honest, I was ignorant of that knowledge earlier that day while we were riding toward it. Our route would take us over three climbs, one being a small bump at about 200m and the other two taking us into and out of Spain at 600m all over a distance of 82+ kilometers with an elevation gain/loss of 1560/1400 meters.
Once we got out of the general seaside area, the traffic fell off dramatically, and we settled onto the “D-” roads of France. What is a “D-” road? I think I would call them County roads here in the US. They are Department managed, and France is divided into Departments. There are 4 levels of D- road, single, double, triple and quadruple digit D- roads. Now generally, though maybe not always true, the single digit roads are the busiest, and maybe most developed, and the quadruple digit roads are old paved goat paths. This is a generalization, but our route took us mostly on three digit D- roads in France with a maybe a single digit road here and there. Once we crossed into Spain, they have their own system. To get out of Saint Jean de Luz we were on the D-918 for awhile, but we eventually ended up on the D-4 that took us to the border town of Dantxarinea Spain where we picked up the N-121 to take us up and over the first big climb. Though this was a busy town, and the D-4 took us to it, the N-121 was not a busy road, but could take you to Pamplona if that was your destination. It wasn’t ours, but it was our direction. I remember feeling pretty good here on this climb. Augie got ahead of me, and I got ahead of Tom where I couldn’t see Augie ahead of me, but I could see Tom on the slope below me maybe 1 switchback behind me. We found Augie at the top, and enjoyed a nice descent down into the valley where we switched to NA-2600 and stopped for a bite to eat. Tom’s Espanol is muy bien, and he ordered for us, I not in the mood to ask if they had anything vegan, and took an egg sandwich on a baguette. Yes we did have a beer indeed.
Now here is where the main story of the day begins. We left the the town of Ordoki, and heading due West on NA-2600 for what essentially would be a valley ride until we hit the slopes of the climb back into France. We rode together to the base of the climb, and then just as the last climb, Augie got ahead of me, and I was no more than a switchback ahead of Tom. Though I am fatter than my ideal cycling weight, the grade was not one that I suffered on. I reached the top, and Tom just behind me, and there was no Augie. It was a perfect place to stop and wait, and I pretty much assumed we would wait atop each climb, but Tom is looking at me, and I am looking at Tom, and the view off the pass is spectacular. There was a restaurant there at the top, and while yes there had been other cyclists, Tom was pretty sure they said they hadn’t seen any on an Orange bike. Look, there wasn’t anywhere else for him to go. There were no spurs off the main road, that I ever saw, so he had to be ahead of us. When we caught him up, he would tell us what the issue was. While I had a little service on my phone, I texted him, and got nothing back, so maybe he was down the mountain in a no-service zone. So, we made the decision to ride on, and down the beautiful descent we rode, having fun the whole way down until we came to the town of Lespars where we stopped and looked inside an old stone church. Upon emerging our phones dinged and we had a message from Augie. From what Tom said, he fell in the mud, was lost etc, was walking riding his bike on a dirt road blah blah, and we just looked at each other with expressions that said “How the fuck did he do that?” I managed to get a message to him and asked him to share is location with me, since we both had iPhones, and when his dot showed up on my phone, he was still in Spain, and he was a couple of miles North of the road we had been on and his dot was moving back towards the base of the last climb. His bike was ridable, but it was muddy. Tom and I decided the best thing for us to do, was to ride on to our finish town, and rent a car and see if we could go find our friend, and so we texted our plan, and the news that he was moving in the right direction.
By the time we got to Saint Jean Pied du Port Augie was back on the road, and climbing the mountain again and was moving and no he didn’t need us to come and get him, so Tom and I spent our time investigating the town to see if we could find a place to spend the night. This was when I learned that this was the most popular starting point for a Camino trek, and this was a popular time of year to start, because it’s much cooler in October than it is in July, and so almost every hiking hostel was “No Vacancy” so after a few denials we back-tracked to a place we saw just as we entered town. The Hotel Restaurant des Ramparts had vacancies and a bar, and the proprietor spoke Spanish so Tom got us all hooked up, we got a beer, and then we sat out front and awaited Augie, still with giant question marks hanging over our heads. We didn’t have to wait too long, as all that time we spent looking for a place gave Augie time to get over the mountain again, and soon he rode through the main gates on an obviously muddy bike and we hailed our friend. He looked relieved to see us, and more relieved to see we had a beer, so he rode over, parked his bike, we got him a beer, and once he was seated and feeling better we popped the big “What the fuck happened?” question.
Tom is a long time cyclist like myself. We both raced through most our adult lives, and we were used to riding long rides back before the introduction of electronic devices like a Garmin head unit which gives you turn-by-turn instructions. Though both Tom and I were “Navigating” with our own devices, we don’t live by them. You are on a mountain climb with switchbacks. Stay on the pavement. Where the pavement goes, so go I. Well there was a small glitch in the actual route that was copied from the source Peter Cossins RideWithGps link published in his book. Tom didn’t see it, I didn’t see it, but Augies turn by turn device saw it, and told him to turn left through one of those switchbacks onto a dirt lane. Now the glitch is that portion of the route, routed over a “Cut-Thru” between two switchbacks, that maybe gravel bike and mountain bikes can take, but Augie didn’t see that part of the detour and just kept riding along the dirt road for a couple of miles as it descended the mountain, all the while thinking this must not be right, but what is behind me seems worse than what lies ahead, so he kept going. Further down the mountain he encountered some section of the road that were muddy, and hence the mud as well as some place where he took a spill, so mud all over Augie as well. That is when he got enough service to text us and get a refresh of tiles on his device, enough to see that he was indeed headed back to the road. I found an email address for Peter Cossins when I bought the book, and the route still had the glitch, so I emailed him, letting him know it was there, and that probably we were riding with the only person whoever tried to follow that route, but since the route is an electronic one, he was free to correct it if he so chose. I got a reply from him, thanking me for the heads up, however I see that the edit was never made because I checked the RideWithGps Raid Mine route, and the error still persists. if you navigate to mile 38 you will see the error, and if you check out Augie’s Strava for that ride you can see where he ended up riding as well as some images from that detour, which includes an image of where he made his mistake that he noted his second time through that switchback.
All was well, he made it. He wasn’t hurt, his bike wasn’t broken, Tom did some maintenance, and we washed off the bike with an outdoor hose, we got cleaned up and we walked around the corner to the Cafe Ttipia Bar where I seem to remember that Augie wolfed down two entrees, while Tom and myself were satisfied with one. The sun settled behind the horizon, and we took a walk around town, which I believe was the first town we saw (or noticed) all the hanging pink umbrellas around. Some kind of art installation, that I/we would come to find was more widespread than just this town, but it made for some very nice images. When we were done, we settled into our rooms after saying good night to day 1.
Day 2 started much the same as Day 1, I was up early, and downstairs before the other two showed up. A traditional continental breakfast was included in our fare, and I took in all the food that I felt okay eating. It’s France, and it’s a 2 star hotel. They aren’t going to have protein options that aren’t animal based, so while I did avoid meat, I did have yogurt, and I did have butter. They might have had Soy Milk for the musli, so there was that! Our bikes were still locked up in a corner of the dining area where we had locked them, and soon Tom and Augie were there with me. Day 2 lay ahead. A beast of a day to say the least with two giants between us and Serrance. The first was actually a double that took us to 1350 meters, and the second well over 1600 meters. The pattern of the first day was not repeated on the second day, as the gradient of these climbs was not the same as day 1.
Saint Jean Pied du Port was locked in fog when we rode out, an eerie feeling with the pink umbrellas. Our route actually took us up the alley with all the hostels, and then out to the main road, which gave a little zing to the route. As the sun started to burn off the fog, we moved to the smaller D- roads of the region, and before long we were settled into our first big climb of the day, the Col de Burdincurutcheta, the first of the double hump is a Col in its own right. Something was wrong with my shifting as I could not get into my easiest gear without it skipping. I tried some adjustments, but I think I only made it worse, and so I found Tom and Augie waiting for me at the top where I explained my predicament, and Tom easily diagnosed and fixed the issue. That was a relief. We had a short drop before we fell into the second part of this double hump, the Col Bagargiak where we found a shop. My bike was definitely operating better, but I was starting to question myself. The shop didn’t have much in the way of food, so we pushed on buying some snacks to munch along the way. We passed by the town of Larrau but for some reason we didn’t go into the village. Maybe it didn’t look like much, but we found ourselves between these two cols with the Col de Soudet ahead of us, and no real town to stop in, so we pushed on. Fortunately we had some snacks, but we all would have preferred a meal before going up again.
The Col de Soudet is where I first started to realize something was amiss. Granted it turned into a higher gradient climb the further into it we got, but I was struggling. Tom and Augie got ahead of me, way ahead of me, and the further up I got, the more I suffered. One item of interest about the climbs of the Pyrenees is that they are all well marked. What does that mean? There is an official sign at the bottom, and one at the top. Every kilometer is a smaller sign with information on it. How far you’ve come, how far still to the top, the current elevation, how many more meters to the top elevation, and what the average gradient is for the next kilometer. All very good information to know. On the lower slopes it was 3 then 4, then 5 and then 6% but then it turned to 8, 9 and 10 with a couple of 12’s thrown in. For an overweight slug like myself, that’s steep, and the road is narrow, so there isn’t any side winding up the climb. I was grinding and not moving very fast, and the lactic acid build up in my legs got to be too much at times, and I had to put my foot down and rest to let it clear. Here is the other issue. I said the road was narrow, so it’s very hard to get enough speed uphill to clip in, and there isn’t enough room to cross the road and get clipped in, and going downhill wasn’t an option because the road was too narrow to comfortably do a 180. So, many times, I would ride a few strokes unclipped and have to put my foot down and try again. Eventually I would get in, but at 12% my legs went immediately into lactic burn again. A few kilometers of that and I was walking, and I walked a ways until the next sign gave me some hope and I climbed back on the bike and managed to get to the top where I found Augie and Tom waiting on me. There was no food up there, and so we had to go down. We missed the turn, and so once realized, we turned around and climbed back to the missed turn, where we continued the descent on what was essentially a paved goat path. That road was no more than 1 single car wide. The official route shows that the route designer also missed the turn, since that is what us miss the turn because we had to go a little further before Augie’s device said “Off Course”. Fuck. Anyway on the way down we passed through yet another small town with nowhere to eat, when down off the mountain we finally passed an open place to get some grub. It was late but they served us, and soon we were on the last little bump before Serrance. This was not a Col, but just a bump and again I watched those two ride away from me. As there was no “Top” there wasn’t any reason for them to wait. It was down the bump to the main road, turn left, and the town of Serrance was a short hop ahead. Luckily Tom called ahead that morning and secured us rooms. We checked in, and met downstairs for a simple dinner and some beers. The day was 106 kilometers with 3450 meters of climbing with 3270 meters of descent. A hard day. We retired and I went from bad to worse.
In my head I rationalized it this way. I drank 3 pretty big beers, and maybe it was 4, and that coupled with the hard day, maybe I was dehydrated, and didn’t eat enough, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t sleep well, and there were times I thought I was going to lose my dinner, but I rested on my back, and in that position the feeling to evacuate my stomach subsided, and I made it through the night.
The next morning we were seated around the table having breakfast and I was hot as fuck. I asked the other two if they thought it was hot. “No”, and we kept eating. We checked out, and got on the road with our first climb being the Col de Marie Blanc, also featured in the 2023 Tour de France the next summer. We were along the main road for a short while, and then we hung a right onto one of the smaller D- roads and soon we were slowly gaining elevation back through this valley, horses, sheep and cattle moving freely across the road as we crossed live stock grates into “their” land. All was going well until I could see that suddenly the road went from okay to holy fuck as the climb proper began. It started with a separator, and so I was once again chasing the other two. Fortunately it eased and I found some rhythm as the road ascended further into the upper parts of the valley towards the pass. Within two clicks of the top I had to put a foot down again, and walk as I just was suffering the gradient too much. I was able to remount and found Augie and Tom chatting up a British expat who lives in the area and loves these roads. While we were talking to him and telling him our plans, he mentioned that the climb of the Col de Tourmelet has a side excursion, which was the original road at one time, named now for Laurent Fignon, and is only open to cyclists, and that it would be worth our while to do that. Noted, we rode down the mountain with this man into the next valley where we turned right and headed for the next turn that would take us to the Col d’Aubisque, another iconic Tour de France climb followed shortly by The Col de Soulor before dropping down into the next valley where our rooms awaited us. We were riding a normal road, not much of a grade, and those guys rode me right off their wheel. Our route took us up into the town of Laruns but when I got to the split off I saw an Inter Marche store and ditched inside to get something to wolf down. Maybe I just needed calories, and then I got on the bike and rode into the town square where I found Tom and Augie. I looked at what lay ahead, and how I was feeling, and we decided there that instead of me following them over those climbs, I would instead ride out of the mountains, and skirt them over to Lourdes where I would then ride into that valley and meet up with them. Maybe it was just a stomach bug, and I needed a day. So we split up right there, and agreed to meet at a bike shop in Argeles where Augie wanted to go. I plotted a route, and followed that instead. I enjoyed the generally downhill grade on the way out of this valley region out into France proper where I turned East and headed for Lourdes. Just because I wasn’t in the mountains any longer didn’t make the road flat, so it rolled along with ups and downs as the road crossed various drainages. Eventually I was approaching the town of Peyrouse and I saw the symbol for the Farmacia, and into the Farmacia I went. The woman who waited on me spoke no English, but I was able to communicate my desire for a Covid-19 test kit, which we transacted and soon I found a picnic area along the main road with a shaded table to take the test. I know most of you have taken this test, and when you are positive, you know it almost as soon as that wetness reaches the test line. In the case of this test, the Test line was the first line, so the drama was waiting to see the control line turn, which means its a valid test. My test line was bright red. The questions of what was wrong with me now had answers. First thing I did was send out a few texts, and post to both Facebook and Instagram as well as to drop a text to Augie and Tom. Then I got back on the bike and rode the rest of the way to Lourdes, which was busy with pilgrims of its own seeking the healing waters. Downtown the city seems vibrant, and on the South end I found the bike path that would take me deep into the Le Gave de Pau river valley. This valley was wider and deeper than the valley I left the Pyrenees earlier that day, so the grade into it wasn’t very noticeable. It was hot, and I stopped at shop that was right on the bike trail to have a cool drink and think about my options. I was pretty sure, since my first go with Covid wasn’t a picnic, that my Pyrenean adventure was over, but I didn’t make any decisions at that moment other than to meet those guys at the bike shop. I did see the “Oh Fuck” response from them so I knew they knew what was going on now.
It only took me another 15 minutes to get to Argeles, and maybe 5 minutes to find the bike shop and then a remarkable thing happened. I hadn’t see these two for 4-5 hours at least, and not 30 seconds after I found the bike shop who rides up but Tom and Augie. What timing! By that time I knew my adventure was over, and I also knew that this was the last time I would see them until we got back to Paris. They still had a few miles to go to get to a bike hostel, and I needed to find a place there in Argeles where I could take the time I needed to convalesce. We air-hugged, they wished me a speedy recovery, and off they went. This was the plan all along. We all had all the gear we needed to continue on alone if necessary, so the group wasn’t dependent on any one person. There was no reason for their adventure to end because mine was ending, and I watched, sadly, as they rode off without me.
From the bike shop I looked up the road past the round-a-bout and I saw a lodging sign, so I rode the 2 blocks and found Logis Hôtel les Cimes, a nice family owned and run 2 star tourist hotel. I parked my bike and met the wife/mother/owner/proprietor outside having a smoke and asked if they had any empty rooms for the next 3 or 4 days. Her English was good enough to know what I asked, and “Oui” was her reply. I must have smiled and she knew she had a new guest. When she understood my question regarding the rate, she scribbled a number of a piece of paper and showed it to me. 71E. And that included breakfast AND dinner!
To answer the big question you might have reading this, I was wearing a mask when I dealt with her, but no I didn’t let on that I was Covid positive, so I disappeared into my room and settled in. I showered, and took a nap before it was time for dinner when I came out with my mask, and made sure they seated me in a corner away from others. Dinner was a delicious multi-course meal with a dessert. There were no vegan options, so I just ordered the fish, and vacated the dining area as soon as I was done. Back in my room, my phone rang and it was my friend Tim Hall on the other end. Tim had heard from Tom and Augie about my predicament and was calling to cheer me up and see what my plans were. Just checking in to make sure I wasn’t depressed, and see what kind of plan I had. I assured him I was going to make Lemonade from these lemons, but my Pyrenean adventure was over and my get-back-to-Paris adventure was beginning. While talking to him I pretty well formulated the plan that I would convalesce until I felt well enough, and then I would get back on the bike and ride to Bordeaux where I could catch a train back to Paris. That was a plan at least.
So, 3 days into the Pyrenees and I was Covid positive convalescing in a nice 2 star hotel with excellent service. I knew my general plan was to get back to Paris, but at the moment it was rest and recover. Sure I was disappointed, but I couldn’t go on, and it didn’t make sense to go back to Paris immediately. It made the most sense to hunker down and recover. So that is what I chose to do. As you peruse the galleries below, note that even when I wasn’t feeling my best, I was at least, still smiling. Maybe better to be sick in a beautiful town in the French Pyrenees than to be sick at home?
Big Bird's Adventures 
[…] of my last write up I had just tested positive for Covid, my mates, as agreed to, have continued on their way, and I am […]