Cycling France 2010: Final Day – the Aubisque and Marie Blanque

Sadly our last day was upon us on our Cycling France 2010 trip.

I'd not had anywhere near enough riding so was glad to be heading out for a final long hit out in delightful warm France. I keenly felt the approaching return home as I'd been told it was miserable, cold and wet in Melbourne. Yuck.

We made the plan to hit the Aubisque and Marie Blanque. I wanted to include the Soulor but that didn't happen for some reason. We rode up to Arrette for a pre-ride coffee, as is the way in this part of France. Very civilised way to start a ride; coffee and croissant.

The day was slightly cloudy, with splashes of sunshine. We rode out through the valley toward the Marie Blanque, but then went the other way before Escot. The peloton did the Escot approach as part of Stage 17.

We wound our way through some hilly roads – some roads of a very poor quality – with little to no traffic.

It was a delight to just be cycling along with no traffic to speak of, and when a car did go past, it did slowly, and with a wave. Such a nice experience to ride in France, rather than deal with the aggro of Melbourne's roads.

We eventually found our way to Bielle (scene of the now-famous Oondrew Klook sprint victory) and then headed up through the very pretty Laruns and Eaux Bonnes which is home to some thermal hot springs (Eaux chaudes I think it is, which means, Hot Waters). We passed some people riding in The Freedom Machine kit; a couple of whom didn't seem to much be in the mood for talking, given the laborious nature of the climb even at this early stage.

I hope their resolve stiffened, as the grade up the road certainly did (from a very gentle 4-6% up to a nasty stretch of 10% plus).

I forgot how tough the Aubisque climb was – we'd stopped halfway up on the way to the summit to watch Stage 16 by an impenetrable wall of gendarme. It is a HC and is a reasonable test. It only reaches around 1700m, but is of a pretty tough grade, particularly after Eaux-Bonnes.

On this day, it was foggy and starting to get chilly.

Michael had taken off just after Eaux-Bonnes, but I'd spent a considerable time keeping him in sight and putting on spurts of speed to reel him in. At one stage, I was only a couple of hundred metres behind.

He took off again (to my frustration) but I got very, very close to the top; it was good to be able to keep contact after the travails of the last 8 months.

It was pretty cold at the top, and very foggy, so we waited for Amy to catch up to us, took some happy snaps (horses wandering around everywhere), then took off back down.

 

We reeled off some photos for Ex Machina Racing, then stopped in Laruns for coffee.

 

It was sunny and warmer again, and so we headed off for the Marie Blanque, which we were tackling in the reverse direction from the way undertaken for L'Etape.

It's a fair old climb up the Marie Blanque from the back, but more of a long grind than a very sharp carnage-maker like the side from Escot. We didn't have any water so had to fill up at a roadside stream. It's pretty safe to do so in the hills, but I was pretty dubious the quality and was worried about drinking cow-pooh water.

Anyway, when in Rome…

The plateau about 3/4 of the way up is great for a rest and some photos. It's an alpen playground; camping, mountain biking, little streams everywhere. The scenery is enhanced by the stern, impassive rocky peaks towering around you; jagged teeth reaching into the clouds. It's very humbling being surrounded by impressive geology and physiography like this.

We reached the top and stopped again for some pics and then descended like hellcats down the other side – reaching speeds above 80km/h.

We had only about 15km to Arrette, but my legs were starting to feel very, very peaky.

After a short final climb above Arrette, we descended down, and rode downhill into Aramits, for the short 10%+ climb back to our accommodation.

We got home and Qty:1 Heineken disappeared stat. A great way to finish the trip, with a day in the Pyrenees.

Garmin data, for those interested, is here.

• Moving time: 6 hours, 7 mins, Elapsed 7'36”
• 138km, calories 2592C
• Elevation gain 2833m