Today was yet another unbelievably great ride! I honestly don't know how the Trek Travel guides can be so successful with the weather. We had bright sunshine all day, no rain at all, and only a mild headwind. The headwind was really only during the last 10 km of today's ride anyway, so it really was no big deal. Very comfortable temperatures all day long.
We went 109 km today, and we accomplished 2,086 meters of total elevation gain. Not bad!
Yesterday had been a wonderful rest day for me at Bagneres de Luchon. I mainly just walked around and explored the town. I was intrigued by the huge cemetery on one side of the town, so I went over there. I had expected to see graves from the very distant past. It may be that I was in the wrong section for that however, as I saw no graves before the early 1800s. Actually, what I saw was not graves, but very impressive mausoleums.
I did stop in the town yesterday and I had lunch at a cafe right out on the street. I had two Kronenbourgs. That's two draft Kronenbourgs. Sitting there in the sunshine, having draft Kronenbourg (my all-time second-favorite beer), I felt that I was probably only one to two centimeters removed from heaven!
Walking around the town yesterday, I could not help but notice that the entire little town was absolutely nestled in (ie.., surrounded by) absolutely huge mountains. I deduced that there would be no way out of town without an impressive climb.
This morning I learned that my deductive skills are marginally still accurate. Indeed, we were literally only 1.3 km from our hotel this morning when we found ourselves on Col de Portillon. That was a brutal category 2 climb, even more brutal because we were not even then warmed up. This is an 11 km long climb, with grades up to 13%. (The average grade is only 6.1%, but this is a relentless climb that simply never lets up at all.)
At the top of Col de Portillon we entered into Spain. I was so disappointed to find absolutely no "Welcome to Spain" sign. I had been expecting and hoping for a photo opportunity with that, but there was none to be had. Oh well!
We had a coolish (OK, it was cold actually) descent from there, and then we began the very long climb of Port de la Bonaigua. That is a category 1 climb, 23 km long literally, with grades from generally 5 to 9%. As difficult as it was, I just couldn't get over how beautiful it was. Lots of photos taken today. That was at 2,072 meters above sea level. As I understand, that will be our highest level attained on this trip in Spain.
Regarding photos, I am having trouble uploading them with this internet connection. I will try to put in 3 or 4 below, if I can. The second one is taken probably a half of the way up Port de la Bonaigua, just above the little town of Arties. If you look in the distance on that photo, you will see a glacier!
Cool!
(Was that a double entendre?)
I am nervous about tomorrow. There will be three awful climbs tomorrow, one immediately as we leave Sort. The third climb tomorrow, then when we are all tired, will be including elevations of 14%!
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