2 or 3 seasons in one day

A windy, grey and overcast start to the day. On the menu today was the Pic de Nore an allegedly beautiful climb featured in the January edition of Procycling magazine. We had a full block headwind on the way out to the climb meaning that the selections were made fairly early in the day. Here's today's profile ....

Not really anywhere to hide there. Unfortunately the weather closed in and it while we didn't get rain it was a cool misty ride to the base of the climb in Mazamet. Dave Mackenzie was riding with us today and I decided to follow him down the first descent to see if I could learn anything. What I did learn was that ex-pros can put a jacket on while riding a fairly twisty descent. I put mine on at the top. The roads on the descent were wet and one of our group had what must have been a low speed (in the end) fall and was bussed back to the hotel.

After riding around Mazamet for what seemed quite a while we found a cafe for morning tea/lunch. Needless to say that the wait for a decent coffee in France continues. After spending what seemed like too long waiting to regroup we got lost again in Mazamet before finally finding our way out to the climb. It was a surreal experience. Visibility was quite low...

...so it was hard to know how far there was to climb.

I saw wild pigs crossing the road in front of me as we got higher into the trees. Luckily the view from the top was worth all the effort of the climb.

To make matters worse it was cold and windy - so I rugged up and headed straight down - which really is the best part about all of this climbing. Again wet roads on the descent meant a fairly conservative approach but as I had hoped about half way down the mountain the skies cleared and we were once more in sunshine.

It was a flatter descent as we got towards the bottom - meaning that some pedaling was required. A quick stop at the bottom to regroup and remove some clothing layers before we made short work of the last 15 km into town. Total ride time of over 5 hours and in the end another pleasant day.

We arrived back to the hotel at around 4:00 - enough time to fuel up, shower and watch the end of the stage on the tele. A walk up to the old city in Carcassonne before dinner of the regional specialty - le Castelet - essentially what seemed like white beans, duck and oil served in a casserole dish. Pizza for entree and the obligatory double scoop of ice cream on the way home. The diet is getting a bit of a work out at the moment.