short, fat and on a bike in france last summer
It was my first mountain...
On the road to the Cul du pas de peyrol: from Salers to Murat.
the day started well, woke up to blue sky. the first time in six days. As the distance to Murat was only 42km's i had a late start and was on the road at about 9am. Usually i like to take it easy for the first 20 or 30 minutes however as i turned left out of the campsite the road was uphill straight away.
Still it was fun, the gradient wasn't to hard and i manged to get up to the 1st little pass in 4/5 gear.When i say "little pass" it was still 1241m above sea level! I remember thinking to myself that it wasn't that hard. Following the summit it was a gentle descent amongst the trees and little waterfalls. This lasted for about 3-4km's.
Then i came across the sign.....it informed me from the here the pass was 481m in vertical height, the road was 5km's to the summit and that the average gradient was 9.62%. Sweet...me thinks....this won't be as hard as i thought...DOH!!!!!!
The 1st 3km's were easy, in third gear with a nice high pedal action. Even got me smiling. Then, i came across the last two kilometres...
I was approaching a corner, the exit hidden by the trees and i thought to myself "f**k, that looks a bit steep" and you know what....i was right! By now i was sadly in 1st gear and was i struggling.
The ascent has been used in the tour de France ( the last time in 2004 when Mr Armstrong powered up it) and most recently in the "race for the sun" a few weeks ago. As i tried to carry on peddling i came across the following words written on the tarmac. " 2kms to the pass...gradient 16%".
It took me about 45minutes to cover the last 2km. I could just about turn the pedals and every 100m's or so i would have to stop and give my legs a rest. It was basically a switchback...1km, sharp turn, 1km to the top. Finally i reached the top of the pass. Even before i could get off the trike about a dozen people surrounded me, some of them even started clapping. Guess they must have passed me on the road in their cars! After about 5 minutes a couple of cyclists came over to have a look. They looked at me...looked at the trike...asked me in which direction i had come and then when i told them looked at me in disbelief!
I spent about half an hour on the summit, then started the descent. Lets just say that even though i wasn't doing a fast descent i must of hit out 45mph! At this point i would like to point out how glad i am that i spent an extra 200 quid on the big disc brake option.
On the road to the Cul du pas de peyrol: from Salers to Murat.
the day started well, woke up to blue sky. the first time in six days. As the distance to Murat was only 42km's i had a late start and was on the road at about 9am. Usually i like to take it easy for the first 20 or 30 minutes however as i turned left out of the campsite the road was uphill straight away.
Still it was fun, the gradient wasn't to hard and i manged to get up to the 1st little pass in 4/5 gear.When i say "little pass" it was still 1241m above sea level! I remember thinking to myself that it wasn't that hard. Following the summit it was a gentle descent amongst the trees and little waterfalls. This lasted for about 3-4km's.
Then i came across the sign.....it informed me from the here the pass was 481m in vertical height, the road was 5km's to the summit and that the average gradient was 9.62%. Sweet...me thinks....this won't be as hard as i thought...DOH!!!!!!
The 1st 3km's were easy, in third gear with a nice high pedal action. Even got me smiling. Then, i came across the last two kilometres...
I was approaching a corner, the exit hidden by the trees and i thought to myself "f**k, that looks a bit steep" and you know what....i was right! By now i was sadly in 1st gear and was i struggling.
The ascent has been used in the tour de France ( the last time in 2004 when Mr Armstrong powered up it) and most recently in the "race for the sun" a few weeks ago. As i tried to carry on peddling i came across the following words written on the tarmac. " 2kms to the pass...gradient 16%".
It took me about 45minutes to cover the last 2km. I could just about turn the pedals and every 100m's or so i would have to stop and give my legs a rest. It was basically a switchback...1km, sharp turn, 1km to the top. Finally i reached the top of the pass. Even before i could get off the trike about a dozen people surrounded me, some of them even started clapping. Guess they must have passed me on the road in their cars! After about 5 minutes a couple of cyclists came over to have a look. They looked at me...looked at the trike...asked me in which direction i had come and then when i told them looked at me in disbelief!
I spent about half an hour on the summit, then started the descent. Lets just say that even though i wasn't doing a fast descent i must of hit out 45mph! At this point i would like to point out how glad i am that i spent an extra 200 quid on the big disc brake option.
“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe”……Anatole France
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Comments
Don
'I was older then, I'm younger than that now' ....
My Blog | Q+ | Moderator, Lightroom Forums | My Amateur Smugmug Stuff | My Blurb book Rust and Whimsy. More Rust , FaceBook .
i know....tried to carry them across from smugmug...but it didn't work....sorry!
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Only gotcha is if you have the images hidden or protected you either wont see them here or you wont be able to copy the location.
Don
'I was older then, I'm younger than that now' ....
My Blog | Q+ | Moderator, Lightroom Forums | My Amateur Smugmug Stuff | My Blurb book Rust and Whimsy. More Rust , FaceBook .
Comments and constructive critique always welcome!
Elaine Heasley Photography
You're not using the correct URL when linking. Please see the tutorial linked in my signature for instructions on how to post images on dgrin.
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well it worked, thanks for that!
an old dog learnt a new trick
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my picture taking has become a little better since then. (In my defense i was tired when i took them
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Congrats on the difficult challenge!
fair enough...here's a large one
took this during a pit stop on the road to the alps
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Sorry for badgering you!
Also, have you checked out our sister site for runners/bicyclists yet?
nay worries
the trike is... http://www.hpvelotechnik.com/produkte/scorpionfx/index_e.html
i was carrying about 40 kilos of gear, tent, stove, camera etc.
had a crazy idea to travel the world, why not by trike. started in england, across france, italy and greece. by the time i had made it to turkey being attacked by every dog i went passed was no longer fun! the trike was, for me anyway, a dog magnet. So now i'm still travelling but this time on buses and trains etc.
if you ever get bored, go to www.mylifeoftravel.com/sfau.home and read about me and my travels.
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