Tourmalet/Hautacam/Gendarmes 1 Coolie 0

An amazingly hard day.  We rolled out from the hotel at around 8:00.  Alan Davis had decided to ride up the Tourmalet with us today - so some of the younger guys - all A graders went with him.  The guides led the rest of us out to the at what was supposed to be a relaxed tempo.  Unfortunately , what is a relaxed tempo for a three time tour stage winner had me working harder than I would have liked before we even got to the Tourmalet - lesson learned. 

The Tourmalet is 17 km of pain, climbing around 1300 m in absolutely beautiful surroundings. 

I settled in to my usual grinding pace (I need even more gears than I had planned for) and toughed it out.  I stopped a few times on the way to  meet new friends ....

... and to take a few pictures of the view.  By the time I got close to the top I was totally cooked and cramp was beginning to set in.  I actually had to climb off the bike and walk the last 30m  as the cramps were so bad.  I really did not drink enough on the climb - at home you don't spend almost 2 hours climbing in the hot sun!! Another lesson learned.  One guy in our group sheared the bolt on his saddle clamp and despite some noble attempts at repairs - he had to ride the last 5 km out of the saddle - an amazing effort.

It was freezing at the top and I ate and drank as much as I could before starting the descent.

 

The road at the top of the descent was amazingly bad - the surface was rutted and a patchwork of pothole repairs.  The bike was really shaking - both from the road and from me shivering with cold.  I rode the descent pretty conservatively and was truly amazed to see the speed that the pros came down that road later in the day. 

Towards the bottom of the descent the roads straightened out as well smoothed out and it was a fast run into the village at the base of the climb.  It was here that we had our first encounter with the Gendarmerie who insisted that we dismount and walk through the village.  For some reason, they had decided to close the course almost over an hour ahead of schedule and we quickly fell into the pattern of stopping dismounting, walking, remounting, stopping, dismounting walking etc. etc....

I'm not sure if the Mayor was determined to trap as many people as possible in the village but after about 3/4 of an hour and 50 gendarmes we had finally cleared the village and as a group of 4 were back riding on the course proper. 

The plan for the day had us riding the final climb of the day - the Hautacam and watching the finish at the top.  I wasn't sure that I would make it up the final climb, but knowing that the hotel was only around 20 km away down hill I knew would be able to roll home if I needed to.  There were people everywhere at the base of the climb and I was able to ride about 3 km up before I was stopped by the Gendarmes.  Given that I was totally buggered at this stage I just turned around and started the slow ride back to the hotel where I was able to rehydrate, eat, shower, do some laundry and watch the race on TV.  Total ride time of just a touch under 6 hours. 

Not many from our group made it up to the summit of the Hautacam as the roads closed much earlier than was planned.  Over dinner last night a hare brained scheme was hatched to just add the Hautacam onto the back end of tomorrow's ride!!  I'd love to do the climb so I'll tackle the Soulor and Aubisque first and see how I feel.

I've managed to post a few photos from the last couple of days - take a look here.