Sunday, August 8, 2010

Cycling in France

Here is the ride data from a few of our rides in France. Unfortunately, the bike computer lost the one from the Alps. These are links to our ride up Port De Bales to see a stage finish, Dave's big loop up Port De Bales the next day and our ride up Tourmalet. They are described by Dave:

Finally getting around to uploading the Garmin data from our rides in France. The link below is to our climb up the Port de Bales where we watched the finish of stage 15. Back home we normally get 4,000 ft of climbing done in about 50-60 miles. This was just 12 miles long. Nicole killed it and even had power to sprint the last 1k to the top. Yeah I even got gapped!

Port de Bales Ride #1

The day after Stage 15 I decided to tackle Port de Bales on my own from the north. This would be the same climb and descent into Luchon that the tour did the day before. After not enough sleep, not enough food and standing around for 4 hrs that morning watching start of stage 16 I blew up about 4km from the top. Des...cending into Luchon was just sweet though. Despite a bad day physically I fell in love with riding in the Pyrenees this day.

Port de Bales Ride#2

The day after Stage 17 we took on the Col du Tourmalet from the east side. Nicole was rightly nervous about a cold wet descent down Tourmalet so I dropped her off at the bottom, parked at the top, descended and we rode up together. We hit the fog below La Mongie and it was socked in to the top, couldn't see 20 yards ahead. Cool 50 degrees made good climbing weather. Great way to finish off our TDF rides.

The Col du Tourmalet

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