Oliver & Lasswell Travel Blog: Day 8 Mane to Saint-Lary-Soulan

Planned for 92 miles and 14,600 feet today, got 91.3 and 13,750. A five pass day and, though no Death Ride, it was a difficult day coming on the heels of everything else we've done. Here's the route summary:

Relive.cc Day 8 Overview

Total mileage through 8 days: 783, total climbing 74,097.
Five cols, though the first was so short--just two miles--that I thought it was kind of cheating.

Col de Larrieu: altitude 2,310 ft, 2.86 miles, 1,030 feet elevation gain, 6.83% avg, 11.9% max.

Col de Mente: altitude 4,426 feet, 6.76 miles, 2,218 feet elevation gain, 6.57% avg, 11.4% max.

Col du Port de Bales: altitude 5,758 feet, 11.74 miles, 3,888 feet elevation gain, 6.27% avg, 11.1% max.

Col du Peyresourde: altitude 5,148 feet, 6.21 miles, 2,149 feet elevation gain, 6.6% avg, 9.5% max

Col de Val Louron Azet: altitude 5,184 feet, 4.7 miles, 2,034 feet elevation gain, 8.27% average, 13.6% max.

Early pace line heading through the foothills.

The early morning was foggy--humid, of course. Figured out early on that I was over-dressed. I didn't need any cold weather gear all day, even for the descents. The summits of each climb were mild and it was really a very good weather day.

Chris Dacey, from Boulder, CO, heading for Larrieu after having discarded all the unnecessary cold weather gear. That's Allan Reeves staffing the van and Dieter also shedding some un-needed clothing.

Gordon heading towards Larrieu.

Just the morning scene on the way to Col de Larrieu. Riding in France is lovely.

Uhhh. . . at the top of Col de Larrieu. I got to the top and thought, "wait, does this count as one of the five passes for the day?!" Off to a good start.

I took only the one picture on the Col de Mente. Difficult climb, not too long. Ended earlier than I expected, so another good ending like Larrieu.

Signs to Col de Port de Bales. It's a 19km climb, the first 7 of which don't count. The last 12, UGH! Part of it was I just wasn't feeling great. Part of it was it was just dang steep in places. When they give you an average of such-and-such a percentage for a climb, that includes the easy grades, even some downhills. When there are a lot of easy grades and downhills you know there will be trouble later because somewhere along the line the higher gradients need to kick in to get the average you see. This was one climb where they show a sign every kilometer telling the average gradient of the km to come. If it says 8% and your starting with a -3% grade for 200 yards that there will be some serious ramps up to get that km average to 8%. Messed with my head all day. Bales was tough. Everything hurt. Lower back. Right hip, right knee. Things would hurt for a bit, then back off. The lower back was the worst. At the top, finally, everything could relax and I returned somewhat to normal.

This was a very difficult climb for me.

The Port de Bales descent.

Just a little church on the Bales descent. These little churches are all over the place.

Gordon on the Bales descent.

Road sign from the Tour on the road to the Peyresourde. This climb was miserable for me, coming on the heels of Bales. We descended D51 to where it intersects D618 (where Froome's 2017 Tour nearly met disaster), turned right (which is what Froome failed to do with him instead sailing straight and into the grassy area and campers) to climb 10 to the Col du Peyresourde. I was still smarting from Bales and although hoping that the lunch I'd eaten at the Bales summit would kick in for this climb it was immediately clear that I was still not going good.


At the top of the Peyresourde I ate a little drank a little Coke, and did something I thought I'd never do. I drank a Red Bull. I didn't like Red Bull's F1 team when Vettel was winning his titles. I didn't like, or buy into, the whole extreme this-and-that that Red Bull associates with. But I tell you what, something I had at the top of the Peyresourde changed the remainder of the ride. We had one more climb to go, Col du Val Louron Azet, mercifully short at 7.5 km, but avg 8%--a stiff little climb. After getting my butt handed to me by the other strong riders in the group I was actually the first to the top of the last climb (thanks in no small part to the fact that Jeff Dux, by far the strongest rider in our group of 10, stopping part way up to give directions to another rider of our group). I had no reason to be up there at all given what had happened the previous two climbs. It was, actually, a little bizarre.

Laurens ten Dam is a professional riding for Sunweb and is someone I follow on Strava--that's why his name's there. The other names are guys from our group. Nico Frias and Chris Dacey are very strong climbers.