We got to the channel tunnel and approached that big sturdy metal girder that says “vehicles under 1.85m” with a slight sweat on as our van is apparently 1.83m tall and well, as we’d not taken the van under one until now we were wondering if the guy was having a bad day when he measured it or whether we’d put too much air in the tyres. Thankfully no scraping noises ensued and the next little bit of excitement was that we were pulled over to be dusted etc (a pretty good thing of course) but unfortunately the delay meant we missed our scheduled train. Of course this little delay was nothing compared to what was to happen on the way back……..


We stayed firstly at a small village near the start of the climb up to the Col du Tourmalet and after spending the first day doing a bit of running and then riding up the valley to Gavarnie we decided that it would be rude not to do the Tourmalet the next day if the weather held.
After our morning run the heavens opened but it still looked possible - it was wet but still warm - so off we went in pursuit of bagging that rather famous Col.

The ascent was quite eventful in the end starting out boiling hot then having to shelter in an empty garage from a torrential downpour whilst contemplating the forked lightning up ahead, then progressing back to bright sunshine and some quite fabulous clear views









(coupled with several emergency stops for jelly beans) before we disappeared again back into the clouds and finally arrived at the top to hardly be able to see anything at all! We quickly layered up and hurtled down at speeds that I probably wouldn’t even drive at but the aim at this point was to make it down as fast as possible to get that crucial 10 degrees warmer.

We were lucky to have the added bonus of making it back before the thunder and lightning returned with a vengeance and needless to say there was much of the monk’s finest consumed as due reward for the days efforts.

This was pretty much the pattern for the rest of our time there and before long we had exhausted what we could reach by foot and bike and we were soon packing up for the short journey over to Luchon.

We were warned that the Pope was visiting Lourdes the day we were travelling (along with about a million other folks) so we took the scenic route to Luchon over the Tourmalet instead although the weather today was less kind when we rode up there – drizzling with rain and only 1 degree at the top - I really felt sorry for all the cold soggy cyclists we saw!

As it turned out Luchon was a bigger place than I was expecting but we managed to find where we were supposed to be with no problem and we installed ourselves in the quaint Le Lutin hotel just in time to sample the cake and coffee which was perfect timing as we soon learnt that the afternoon snackathon was a meal not to be missed! More coming on the food (and of course the trails) very soon!