The Great Pyrenean Adventure - Day 11
Tuesday 23rd September Laruns to Aramits - 41 kms and the puny 1035m Col de Marie Blanche
I've done this only once before and a climb, which on paper appears pretty easy by Pyrenees standard - only 600m altitude gain, no double arrows etc is in reality an absolute swine. The Michelin man must have been in a car when he checked this section - but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I woke to the sound of very gentle rain on the tent - it always sounds worse inside and a look outside showed people packing up, most not wearing waterproofs so it was the sort of rain that doesn't really get you wet, if you know what I mean... This misty drizzle cleared as we packed up and we cycled up into Laruns for the usual breakfast and route 'briefing'.
I warned everyone not to take what was coming for granted and made provisional plans for lunch. Unusually for a day in the mountains we would ride on for quite a while after the col so needed to find food at midday. I knew a really splendid restaurant right at the foot of the col in a village called Escot so arranged for us all the meet up there rather than the top. The severity of the climb would split us up, and the rather scruffy windswept top, devoid of shelter (read bar) was hardly suitable for a rendevous. The first there would probably have hypothermia by the time the tail enders got there...
The route to the foot of the col was 10km down the flat valley to the village of Bielle. The main road was pretty quiet but looking at the map, a little lane ran along the other side of the river through and looked a lot nicer. We set off together and soon it became apparent that the 'pretty' route was also pretty hilly. Jeff hurtled off up the first and after a moment's thought I decided to set off after him. After the first hill, having made no ground and feeling sick I eased off to find William on my tail grinning - so much for experience...
With William were the usual suspects of Liz and Rob and so we kept together up hill and down dale to Escott - by now it had started to rain enough for us to don waterproofs. I waited at the foot of the col and saw a few start, but it was just too cold and wet to hang about so I decided to set off safe in the knowledge that everyone knew the route, and that accidents/breakdowns (a big and risky assumption I know) excepted, I could concentrate on the ride ahead.
I stripped off all my waterproofs down to a T-shirt. It was cold and wet but I knew what was coming and didn't think that I'd be cold. The alternative was to wear the waterproof and get totally soaked inside it as well as overheated. Meryl had a page from some guide saying that riding up it from this side was pretty easy - I'd told her they'd obviously done it in the same car as the Michelin man... You see I'd class the Marie Blanche as a 'power col', for me at least. Most cols are steep and hard, but by pacing yourself you can get up them at a steady rate. 'Power cols' require real heavy effort, drawing on your reserves all the time rather than letting you cycle at a sustainable rate. It means you have to judge them carefully. Because you are forced to work at a rate greater than you are comfortable with you either have to have a couple of long i.e. 20 minutes+ stops to recover, or try to pile up keeping as pumped up as possible. I knew the col well, and that after the first 6 kms of killer climbing you reach the Pleteau de Benou - a wide open and surprisingly fertile area which runs pretty flat for 3 kms before climbing again. Plan 'A' was to storm the first section, recover 'on the bike' over the Plateau and then pile up the last bit.
Hitting the first hill I realised my memory hadn't been playing tricks, this was the steepest climb so far regardless of what the signs and map said. But thankfully after a week in the mountain I was hitting some kind of rhythm and the result was that once warmed up I found myself making good progress. I even saw the gang of three - William, Rob and Liz well ahead but not pulling away which made me feel very smug. As always you can't believe how fast the little villages at the foot of the col fall away as you wind up the hill. I had music in my head - Led Zep's 'Communication Breakdown' which gave me a good cadence - better than Allister's "Bibbidy Bobbity Boo!" anyway...
As I'd hoped I was staying warm enough, though it was raining with intent by now. A baseball cap kept the rain off my glasses, but what the rare car drivers must have thought of the strange figure on a heavily loaded bike, wearing black stockings, a T-shirt and a baseball cap in the pouring rain I shudder to think. After 4 k I saw a wizened old shepherd in the distance leading his sheep up the road whilst leaning on a stick. It took me 10 minutes to catch and pass him - which gives you some idea of how fast my 'piling-on' was.
But though feeling a bit knackered as I crested the first rise and onto the Plateau, it was a pleasant knackered, rather than that awful drained-of-all-energy feeling you get sometimes. The wind was now biting across the plateau so I donned my waterproofs and saw Allister coming up behind looking strong - but as I was freezing to death I decided to press on.
The Plateau is really pretty, the sort of fertile valley that seems to be a hidden feature of mountains everywhere. In the end I rode it quite quickly to keep warm and soon the front wheel was once again pointing skyward as the road steepened. This bit was harder than I remembered and for about a km matched the bottom of the col with some viscous hairpins. But I knew the col was beaten, and when, 2 km from the top the road flattened again I remembered how it became much more of a corniche road up the final stretch to the col - in fact I got cold again. Then the col sign can into view, it's a scruffy undistinguished top, with scattered evidence of logging and no redeeming features. It was raining quite hard and I was cooling fast but I waited for 10 minutes for Allister as I knew he wasn't far behind, while I waited I got my camera out for the col pic, and stuffed it back in before it got wet. I also donned my wet descent gear - i.e. everything I owned - but my hands were so swollen and cold I couldn't get my ski gloves on, and in the end, swearing, I stuffed them into the pannier and put back my soaking string backed cycling mits. Allister then came up to me and I informed him I was off:-)
The descent was fast, bumpy, wet and cold - great fun... At the bottom there was a 3 km 'lumpy' ride to 'my' restaurant in Escot. It was shut. Not as in "closed till 12.00am" but "closed forever". Bugger. No sign of the leaders of the gang either. OK. Thinks... It's a small village, but it's on a main road so there'll be a restaurant. Trouble was if it was off the route one iota everyone would just sail on blaming me for leaving them starving to death until they reached the campsite or fell-off-the-edge-of-the-world...
So I set off on the route into the main part of the village on the main road. At the junction there was a very scruffy bar and three bikes outside - great I haven't lost them all... Inside were the usual suspects of William, Rob and Liz. William had asked the bar owner about a restaurant and been told there wasn't one for 10 kms. I took him out of the bar and pointed to the restaurant sign 100m along the main road. I left them and checked it out - full of lorry drivers it looked perfect so I booked us in explaining that we'd be arriving over the next hour and the owner said "pas de problem" I could have kissed him...
Freewheeling down to the bar I gave the three the good news (Rob was getting desperate by now) and sent them off. Next problem... Where were the others? Jeff I knew had hurtled off leaving William & co behind when he'd learnt there was no food, but I'd expected at least Allister to be there by now. I cycled back to the junction with the closed restaurant - no sign. I waited for 15 minutes. Nothing. Back into the village, up and down the main road for a km to see if somehow I'd missed them (ah! the 'loneliness of command'). So either they were dawdling, the tough climb had split them up completely, they were lost, or had died on the descent. 'Bugger it I'm hungry'. So off to the restaurant:-) We'd left a trail of bikes from the junction to the restaurant to the main road junction, so I couldn't really do more. Of course the minute I stopped flapping about they began rolling up all looking knackered but with big grins at the sight of the restaurant. It was a big spread between fastest and slowest, well over an hour on a short col which shows how severe it was. For once it was Meryl who's suffered, I guess the sheer power needed to keep the wheels turning had cracked her usual steady rhythm - anyway she looked all in. Jennie, Evelyn and Allan rolled in but looking fine so I guess they'd stolen a lift somewhere...
The meal was perfect. five courses with a great big filling soup as starter. Second starter was a quiche, the best we'd ever had and then masses of chips! Cheese, desert and a vat of wine - 9.00 euros, and the lady doing the cooking came out to chat and really make us feel good - a special meal - thanks. Cyclists take note of where it is.
Very full, slightly drunk and pretty happy we wobbled off for a relatively easy 15 kms to the campsite at Aramitz, a place I'd camped at several times before. We'd bought food at a little supermarket first and quite incredibly managed to eat some of it that night. Of course none of us gloated to Jeff one little bit...
At the little supermarket I tried to instigate a "tackiest souvenir of the trip" competition, but then I spoilt it by finding an egg-cup in the form of a Swiss (!) St Bernard with a hole through his head from ear-to-ear where lodged an egg spoon. This was so ghastly that everyone gave up the contest immediately, my little Rosie uses it for her boiled egg every day:-)