Col de Spandelles

A warm up ride in the morning along Voitre Verte (isn’t that a lovely way to describe a cycle path - Green Way. We shake out our bike setup. Everyone is happy with just a few tweaks. Lourdes is only 7k down the valley - so many Boulangerie, so many patisseries, so many cigaret smokers (??), so many cyclists.

# Non cyclists ignore the next paragraph #

Nice way to start proceedings with Col de Spandelles with 16.2k off climbing straight from town. It’s a modest peak with 960m of vertical gain at an average of 5.9% with a maximum of 13%. It seemed harder than the sum of its parts.

This is the start of our experience with French drivers. They are wonderful. For want of a better expression, Australia seems to be crawling with assholes.

The descent back to town is a blast!Read more