Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Tour des Pyrenees

Hi everyone since my last update I have undertaken some major climbing in the Pyrenees which was very scenic.
The tour started on the 6th so that meant doing a traveling to Lourdes in the Pyrenees on the 5th of August.
It was about a 4hour drive up and then out to the west of France and had some pretty nice scenary for the last part of the drive.
6th was the first stage which started in Tarbes and finished in Loudenville 147k and like usual it was very aggressive with lots of attacks happening all day long. It had 3 major climbs in this stage Col Burg Cat 3, Col Le Hallia Cat 3 and then to finish it off Col d' Aspin Cat 1, which was the hardest climb but was well worth it as it had an awesome decent down to the finish where i finished in a bigger bunch out the back of the race.
Stage 2 St Laurent Neste to Val d' Azun, which was the longest day of the tour and the hilliest it was 168k and went over Col Cieutat cat 3, Col du Soulor Cat 1 and then a hill climb finish on Col de Couraduque Cat 1 which was rather suckfull as had no decent to look forward to.
Stage 3 Orlon-Jaca this stage saw us crossing the border into Spain we started the day with a Hors Cat climb otherwise the biggest mountian we went over in the tour. Col du Somport HC then had an awesome decent hitting 90kmph alot then we had 2 other climbs Puerto S.Juan de la Pena Cat 1 which had a nasty steep section at the top followed by a decent then Puerto Oroel Cat 3 which wasn't so bad and then a nice decent to the finish. After the stage we drove back to the race Accomodation or should I say ski resort which was rather nice, It even had Eurosport in English so we could watch the opening of the Olympics and undrstand what they were saying.
Stage 4 was a flat stage in comparison to the last 3 days it only had 2 climbs Alto de Alcubierre Cat 3 and Alto Lecinena Cat 3 and this stage was all in Spain which meant it was like a desert and rough roads unfortunately. I missed the break of 9 that road away in the first couple k of the race, so just sat in the bunch and waited for the bunch sprint where i ended up 7th so 17th in the stage. Then we had a marathon drive back to Limoux via the Pyrenees so atleast we had some pretty spectacular views and photos. So all I can say it was a nice tor for scenary but not really that friendly to the bigger riders like myself.
August 10th I just went for a 1 1/2 hour spin with Mike Torckler.
11th Did a 2hour tempo once the rain had gone.
12th Was a rest day so got around to updating this and doing some baking of training food for the next few weeks and just chilled. The next race is Ronde Gard which is on sunday then we are off up North to Plouay where we will spend a week or so up there doing Plouay on the 24th and then Cabri Tour the following weekend.

Catchya

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