With no shortage of trepidation, we set out this morning to tackle both sides of a Tour legend -- Col du Tourmalet -- with a sprinkling of two other climbs in the Tour lineage. The day was expected to be long, and, by Aigars' own description, the most difficult of our six days of riding. And with that rather direct preface in place, the day did not fail to deliver.
The opening crawl up the first half of Tourmalet -- the difficulty of which cannot be captured in a photo by virtue of the narrow valley the road edges through -- offered no shortage of spikes in gradient, culminating in a 10+% slog up the final kilometer. A short descent led to what would otherwise be categorized as a civilized trek up Ancizan, a theoretical breather stamped out by 31 degrees celsius heat and mostly still air.
Yet another quick spot of coffee put us on the Tour's Wednesday route over Aspin and the flip side of Tourmalet. The first of the two climbs offered more challenge than anticipated, falling somewhere between Mt. Tam and Mt. Diablo. The second climb -- the more difficult half of Tourmalet -- hit right around mile 60 and was an absolute sonofabitch. Setting aside aimless and unimpressed mid-road livestock and their megatons of equally mid-road shit, the final 10 km closed with a gradient that never fell below 8%, and often wandered much closer to 10% for extended stretches.
Notwithstanding these obstacles, both of us pounded through the entire climb -- the younger chased by a grown-ass man in a pink bunny suit, the elder confounded by a cow on holiday -- often aided by shouts of "ALLEZ!" from the assembled thousands and their motley selection of campers. It wasn't always pretty and it certainly wasn't fast, but we finished the damn thing with no trips in the van, no cramps and no flats.
Pretty goddamn proud of the old man.
Race viewing tomorrow. A special thanks from both of us for all of the support State-side. The horrible internet often precludes us from responding more directly, but you should all know your collective words of encouragement, quips and smartass remarks fuel us every bit as much as the gels, bars, gel-bars and mandatory suppositories.
Lots of love,
The Ruegs