As near as damn it to Carcassonne
2011 Part 4: We were leaving Arreau today for Trebes, a commune close to the walled city of Carcassonne. To get there we essentially had two options. We could either ride up to La Barthe-de-Neste and then head due east past Saint-Girons – about a 4 hour ride. Or we could drop down into Spain […]
Port de Bales and lunch in Saint-Lary
2011 Part 3: There were no big miles planned today, just a pleasant 130 mile loop that was going to include a lunch stop in Saint-Lary at Auberge de l’Isard – where we stayed for a couple of enjoyable nights during our 2007 tour. Besides that our only other goal was to see if we […]
Dipping into Spain and some classic Tour de France cols
2011 Part 2: Still a little weather obsessed after last year it was a relief to see that the Meteo France forecast we’d seen last night was spot on when we awoke this morning. We hadn’t really doubted that it would be sunny today but you never can tell in the Pyrenees where conditions can […]
It’s good to be back in the Pyrenees
2011 Part 1: Unlike last year’s wash out this year’s tour got off to a much more auspicious start. It was the usual starting point, Kyle’s house in the centre of Bewdley, and by the time everyone finally turned up a little after 10.30am it was already t-shirt weather without a cloud in the sky. […]
Return to Santander and the ferry back home
2007 Part 4: Today saw us heading west across the Pyrenees to Esterencuby, about 5 miles from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. However we were split on how to get there. While Gaz and Pete preferred the most direct route, the rest of us decided to go the scenic way. Before we left Saint-Lary this morning though Madame presented […]
Urdos to Saint-Lary and a ride out to Andorra
2007 Part 3: We had quite a big ride planned today with our proposed route taking us over 6 passes. After our second pass of the day, the Pourtalet, we would be leaving France and spending pretty much the rest of the day in Spain. Once on the Spanish side we were going to head […]
A plan comes together in Urdos
2007 Part 2: Today was the day that Phil, Chris, Gaz, Taj and Mark kicked off their tour and saw them riding down to Plymouth to catch the overnight ferry to Santander. It was also Cat’s birthday – the big one. Aside from a short 14 mile round trip to the supermarket so Pete could […]
The long, wrong way down to Millau
2007 Part 1: Late yesterday afternoon we – that’s Cat, Pete and Kyle – set off from Bewdley and travelled the 150 miles – most of them wet – down to Portsmouth to catch the 10.45pm overnight ferry to Caen. At 6am this morning soft music was piped through to our cabin and all of […]