Ariege Pyrenees - Col de la Core
Ariege Pyrenees - Col d'Agnes
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Medieval villages and many beautiful one-lane roads winding through lush mountains
23 photos and movies (
) by Steven Hill and Rebecca Heald, steephill.tv • update: 2008 Tour de France stage 11 includes Col de Portel
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As mentioned in the previous day's report, our Ariege base camp was in the Massat Valley. While researching the area for the trip, I discovered the Roquefort Cycling Lodge on the Internet. Sally and Austin Roe left a normal life in England in the spring of 2005 to begin running the lodge they had purchased from Nick Flanagan, who set it up over 10 years ago and has accommodated countless cyclists. Nick still orchestrates several Raid Pyrenean each summer.
The lodge is a cross between a gite [definition] and a friend's cozy country home. Sally and Austin were attentive and entertaining hosts. Sally cooks the meals and serves up dishes every hungry cyclist will enjoy. The dinner table is shared by everyone as Austin regales his guests with local stories. The lodge is decorated with Nick's cycling memorabilia from many decades of collecting. Although the lodge is next to the main road that runs through the valley, there is so little traffic and you'll be so tired at night you won't hardly notice the occasional car.
The lodge has a great collection of books and maps. Our three routes were roughly charted during a 15 minute post-dinner map huddle with Austin, Sally and their British friends Paul and Nicole. Later that night I wrote up three cue sheets while the roads were still fresh in my head. With the outstanding route on day one, I was looking forward to the next two days.
The lodge has great potential -- it's ideally situated and Sally and Austin are off to a good start.
Day 4: Col de la Crouzette, Col de Portel, Col de Peguere and Col de Port - 42k, 1300m (26mi, 4265ft)
Biert → D18 (Col de la Crouzette) → D72 (Col de Portel and Col de Peguere) → Boussenac → D618 (Col de Port) → Massat
Biert (circa 1750) has changed little A short ride this day but as you see from the elevation gain we got a lot of bang for the buck! We headed west for 1 km on the D618 that runs past the lodge to old town of Biert, another peaceful medieval-ish village. While making the right turn up the main climb of the day I saw a lady pushing a wheel-barrel full of hay and I thought the place probably hasn't changed much for 300 or so years. There's something oddly refreshing about being somewhere where change isn't important. At dinner the previous night, we were warned that the 8.25k climb up to the ridge behind the lodge would be very hard so we took it easy at the start and waited for the road to kick up. During the first 5k we occasionally hit sections of 7% and thought maybe the climb had been oversold. But then the warmup abruptly ended and we were swimming against the current up 10 percenters. Then it started getting steeper with each ensuing switchback. St-eeeeeeeeee-ep! Steep as in... tough keeping the front wheel straight and on the ground. Steep as in... our fingers were bloodied from clawing our way up. Steep as in... whose friggin' idea was this anyway?! The fun max-ed out at over 19 percent with plenty of extended 12 and 14% sections. The scoring summary on the first climb - 8.25k (5.15mi); maximum grade 19.3%; elevation gain 675m (2215') for an average grade of 8.2%. An even tougher climb in cold weather with very little warmup as we did it. In the spirit of our three day tradition of renaming Pyrenees Cols, we had already re-christened Col de la Crouzette to “The Cruel-zette” several km from the ridge.
As we continued up and along the ridge, once again the view was the reward. Is there a greater sensation than cycling along a ridge? Be careful to avoid whiplash as your head constantly swings left and right. While cycling east on the ridge up the gradual climb to Col de Portel, the view to the right (south) was of the lush mountains and the valleys carved around them that we captured on our 1st Ariege ride. The view to the left (north) was dramatically different and illustrated a striking contrast... there are no foothills to the Pyrenees, they just spring up! (see video right) It was quite possibly more impresseive than any of the great ridge cycling we've experienced in California such as King Ridge in Sonoma, San Juan Canyon Rd leading up Fremont State Park near Hollister, the Bolinas Ridge in Marin, and Grizzly Peak Blvd in the Berkeley Hills; perhaps with the exception of the ridge along the Santa Ynez Mountains in Santa Barbara.
Along the ridge we zipped up and over Col de Portel (el 1504m), the highest point on the day, and exited back down the ridge at Col de Peguere. Col de Peguere has a great panoramic lookout of all the great peaks in the Ariege, but our view on this day was somewhat obscured by cloud cover. From Col de Peguere we descended a steep, steep one laner for 3.5k down to Col des Caougnous, which is the halfway point to Col de Port when starting in Massat. Col de Port is more famous for its connection to the Tour de France than for its beauty. Nothing too spectactular, Col de Port is a corridor to the Ariege that has been utilized 30 times in the history of the Tour de France. Of note however, was the 13k descent back to Massat. It is a lot fun and much more interesting than the climb because you carve turn after turn down the twisty 4.5% average grade while the Massat Valley opens up. Massat is one of the bigger villages in the Ariege, but we were amazed how quiet it was at 3:00 PM on a Monday afternoon in September. We found one bar & restaurant open and sat out on the patio warming ourselves up in the afternoon sunshine. This would be our coldest day in the Pyrenees. As I mentioned off the top, a short ride this day, but with big challenges and rewards. -- Steve, November 8, 2005
Next... French Pyrenees Day 5: Col d'Agnes and Col d'Escots »
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