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guitarbuddha -> RE: Cycling (Aug. 25 2007 16:11:40)
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Hi everybody, I am home and safe. The trip went really well. I had done this kind of thing before and my body remembered quickly how to tolerate the long hours on the bike.
The scenery was amazing and I met some great people. There were some instances of pretty poor hospitality paricularly in Hendaye on the French coast where they wouldn't let me into the campsites and there were no hotel rooms available in the whole town. I ended up walking half the night to Urrugne and sleeping in the public toilets for three hours being woken every fifteen minutes by the bells of the adjacent church. But eventually the next day I found a place to rest in Saint Jean de Pied de Port where they were so warm and friendly and helpful in the Pilgrims Refuge.
I think I cycled around three thousand kilometres in my four weeks on the bike ( six days on and one day off ). My resting heart rate has dropped from 87 to 52 and I have lost at least ten kilos.
I've just been saying hello to my guitar and for once she seems to be quite forgiving of my neglect.
Fortunately on this trip I had no crashes ( I wrote off a bicycle seven years ago in the French Alps and just two days later, descending Mont Ventous in Provence way too fast, I crashed the replacement ) I guess I must be getting a little more cautious .
I went through three tyres on the back wheel and six sets of brake blocks, and fifteen inner tubes ( thanks in part to the discraceful roads between Girona and Perpignan ) miraculously the wheels stayed true and apart for minor adjustments the bicyle withstood all that I put it through easily.
My best day was after leaving the pilgims refuge I climbed from St Jean De Pied de Port to Argeles-Gazost. I cycled 180 kilometres with one medium sized Col (mountain pass) called the Ostrich and then a long climb towards Lourdes before I attacked with gusto the mighty Col D'Aubisque ( 19 kilometres of hard climbing with a thirteen percent section in the middle to really let you know that you are alive ). On this day I could not get tired and my breathing was so slow and light and the bicycle felt like part of me. These days are few and far between.
On another day I cycled to the Col de Envalira which is the gateway to Andorre and the climb from Prades in French Cataluny lasts eighty kilometres and takes in three Cols. I forget the name of the first but I do remember the two hours with no water at 39 degrees C with no shade carrying heavy packs to reach the summit at around 1700 metres above sealevel. Then things cooled a little for the Col De Puymorenes rising to 1980m. Then finally the Col de Envilara which at 2400m which I arrived at at half past nine in the evening as night fell, temperature 1.2 c. It was certainly cold as descending at 60kpm drenched in sweat wearing shorts and a summer cycling top with nothing but a lightweight goretex cycling jacket I descended the 15k to the first hotel I could find and begged for a bed and a meal. I will never forget the sensation of feeling the tendons in my hands and wrists creacking once I had lost all sensation in my extremities and the outline of the read ahead in the moonlight as willed the hotel to appear.
The trip was everything I had been hoping for. I cant wait for the next one.
Regards to everyone and thanks for all your concern and interest.
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