Raid Pyrenees

[Marek]

Last week I spent the whole week riding from Biarritz area to Perpignan, 6 days of riding with some serious ascent and around 500 miles of riding. Took in pretty much every possible climb in the Pyrenees. There is an official Raid route, but we took a route that went away from the main roads and took in some more climbs. This has to have been one of the most enjoyable and hardest things I have ever done on a bike. The weather was fantastic the scenery was awesome and the mountains were tough. Tourmalet, Aubisque, Peysourade, Aspin, Marie Blanc, Portet D'Aspet (I crawled up that one), Port de Paldeheres and many more.

I did this with a club from North London. Each night we stayed in a reasonable 2 star hotel with dinner bed and breakfast provided for around 50 euros a night. We were supported by a driver with transit van who carried our luggage and drove our bikes to and from France so that we only needed hand luggage on the plane. 15 of us completed the course, a couple of guys had illness on a couple of days so spent some time in the van, but overall everyone had a great time.

[img]http://i49.tinypic.com/2u7ogh5.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i48.tinypic.com/jhxx5l.jpg[/img]

Awesome week and something that ACC should consider having a go at organising for those that fancy a good hard challenge.

Cheers

Marek.....

[Paul H]

[img]http://i49.tinypic.com/2u7ogh5.jpg[/img]

You dont look very happy

[Marek]

I was getting cold

[Marcus]

Good going Marek you do seem to find these great value breaks.
Spent anytime in the UK recently or are you off on another jaunt.

[Dombo]

Nice new surface on the Tourmalet, I see

[Andrew G]

Sounds painful but fun. I like the fact you are almost as tall as the sign .

[Marek]

Actually most of the roads were absolutely covered in gravel. The ones that are being used for the Tour were far from ready, there was gravel everywhere, fine on the ascents but did make some of the decent rather dodgy. If you do this type of trip probably best to do either at same time as the Tour or just after as roads will be great.

Cheers

Marek....

p.s. Marcus, am off to Rotterdam this weekend to watch the start of the Tour, riding to Harwich on Friday, so am doing a bit of UK riding.