Thread: tr: col d' aubisque

just a random one to get us started, the fish head bin at a country market outside biarritz france.
anyways, i was hanging out near biarritz last week with some friends of the family who've retired down
there and in between totty watching on the amazing beaches, i did a bit of bike riding. i even took my
bike up to the pyrenees one day to try out an 'HC' climb cause i've never done one...

(sorry about the huge shots, didn't have time re-size and i'm a total jong when it comes to these things)

i first went from west to east in the true HC direction. i didn't start in laruns in the valley, deciding to for
go the first 5 km of about 5% riding and start from eaux belles for 13km at 8%.

eaux belles


my trusty ride is a fondriest max carb (re-spayed, but it's still a fondriest) with a mix of 105 and ultegra 10sp, bontrager race lite wheels


unfortunately my smallest gear was 39x25 so i averaged about 74 rpms on the way up, not ideal.
winding my way up, i took this looking back down the valley. this is about 6 km into it and 7 km left



starting to feel the strain (and coming straight into your f'in cubicle, baby)



winding away above the treeline



my ugly mug at the top



final time was 57 minutes over 13 km and about 1,000 meters evelvation gain. that all adds up to about 345 watts at my 78 kgs
of weight. i did take about a minute break every 15 minutes or so cause i was running such a big gear. also, i'm not an incredibly
experienced cyclist and am definitely not an endurance athlete. it was a blast though and i did some more riding around in the area
the rest of the day putting together around 50 kms and 2,000 meters of climbing. if you've ever thought about going cycilng in the
pyrenees, DO IT!

can anyone help w/ the re-sizing thing? sorry about that.

If you can climb aubisque and then do 'some more riding around in the area' you're definitely an endurance athlete in my book.
I pretty well know the region (my mother has a house there) and I've climb the aubisque once. A long time ago. It's a killer of a col !

noice! have always wanted to ride one of those cols in EUR...so beautiful.

eff yeah. thanks for the euro stoke. Don't worry about resizing...looks good on my 1600x1200 flat panel

Nice job! That's just awesome.

wait just a minute, though: Ulty Guy, is that a man purse you are rocking there in that last photo? or a mussete bag?

Originally Posted by freshies

wait just a minute, though: Ulty Guy, is that a man purse you are rocking there in that last photo? or a mussete bag?

I think it's kind of cool

What? Who huh? Did someone say something? Couldn't be.

Originally Posted by freshies

wait just a minute, though: Ulty Guy, is that a man purse you are rocking there in that last photo? or a mussete bag?

when in euro-land....

nah, a mussette bag. i burn through energy really damn quick. i ususally bonk in an hour and quarter or so and that's even with drinking powerbar performance instead of water the whole time. so, i was kinda worried about this ride and brought some extra bars and 2 tubes, etc cause it'd suck to be stuck somewhere up there.

one really nice thing about the ride was that even though there were a decent number of tourists in the area, they always drove really respectably and with a lot of caution and encouragement for the cyclists. an old french dude even offered me a 'pastis' out of a car window on the way up the hc cols of the tdf aren't climbed on mineral water alone (rip off of anquetil).

Originally Posted by ulty_guy

can anyone help w/ the re-sizing thing? sorry about that.

http://www.irfanview.com

open your pic then do image / resize / select size / save.
or if you have a bunch, hit B and select a bunch for batch mode. the resizing option is under advanced options.


nice. i *heart* biarritz. how was the surf?

thanks jay! yeah, biarritz was completely amazing and highly recommended. i was staying about 30 minutes north and 15 minutes inland so usually went to hossegor for the beaches. these are the nicest beaches i've seen in europe and probably the best i've been to outside hawaii with great, natural setting with beautiful water, nice waves, and absolutely unbelievable totty i did give surfing a try and it was pretty damn fun, but the good season is supposed to be sept and oct. went to biarritz itself for a day too and totally fell in love, it's a beautiful corner of the world.

Originally Posted by ulty_guy

thanks jay! yeah, biarritz was completely amazing and highly recommended. i was staying about 30 minutes north and 15 minutes inland so usually went to hossegor for the beaches. these are the nicest beaches i've seen in europe and probably the best i've been to outside hawaii with great, natural setting with beautiful water, nice waves, and absolutely unbelievable totty i did give surfing a try and it was pretty damn fun, but the good season is supposed to be sept and oct. went to biarritz itself for a day too and totally fell in love, it's a beautiful corner of the world.

yep, my sentiments exactly. i surfed the region on a few trips, need to get back. hossegor is one of my favorite areas. nice waves for a beachbreak and probably the best looking topless girls in france (europe?). however, the french aren't always so friendly at their homebreak. i've had a few incidents but that is to be expected. another nice area is hendaye (smaller easier waves) to the south. it's mellower and has a nice wide beach. if you are ever there during a big swell, go down to guethary (avalanche) which has the biggest waves in europe. to watch of course.