Saturday, July 26, 2014

Day 21


 As I mentioned yesterday because I was so sore from the ride we decided to go with the SAG (Support and gear) wagon.

We woke early for breakfast as the SAG wagon was going to set out at 9:30am, this is what we had right outside our window.


This is a team car from one of the teams in Le Tour de France. Apparently (according to Jan) a lot of the he teams stay in Lourdes as it is close to the common mountain stage climbs each year.

Our job today was to support the group of riders that were doing the longest ride, 90kms.

Here are a couple of snaps from the van window.




Not too bad considering we were doing about 100 and the glass for glossy and tinted.

Now there were 2 climbs to be done on this ride, The first was


Here was the view




This place had 2 cafés on it and a heap of horses and sheep.


This guy was as stubborn as, and this is the van we were travelling in all day.




Kelly enjoying the wild life.


A panoramic!


I also had a coffee while we waited for the riders to crest the top.


Ah here some are now


Some more beautiful shots






The second climb was, Matt look an eagle!!




This also had a cafe located right on the top of the mountain. The reason why these guys stay in business is the cycling traffic they get most of the year round.

The way there was stunning



Some Tom foolery on the way


Some nice shots too






To get to this summit you had to got through here

 

There was another one that was long and was completely dark so the riders had to essentially feel their way as they didn't have any lights on.

Found this in the cafe on the summit.


The guy who won the 1926 Le Tour de France. In those days you had no support, it was much longer and you had to fix your own bike. If you broke a front fork you had to go to a blacksmith and repair it yourself, the blacksmith was not allowed to help otherwise you got disqualified. This guy won it an hour ahead of his rivals, now that is tough stuff. What was also interesting is that he owned a cafe on this very mountain when Jan (our driver) was growing up and was considered a French legend.

Here are some pictures from the top of this climb.



On the way down the worst thing happened, we came across an accident, someone on the decent.


He had over cooked the corner and "supermaned into the side hill", he was in a ditch on the side of the road made as comfortable as he could be by his friends. This picture was us waiting for a helicopter (that eventually didn't arrive) to air lift him out. It was quite scared as pretty much everyone didn't speak French so it was a real struggle until Jan (our driver) came to the rescue (incidentally he speaks 4 languages, legend).

We found out later the guy had 5 broken ribs, broken collar bone, broken other shoulder and 3 fractured vertebra. So a word of caution to all cyclist please be careful and mindful when decending, cycling can be a very dangerous sport (I am looking at you Andi and only because we care *grin*).

We were dropped off by Jan at the bottom of the Hautacam, the final climb for the day for Le Tour.

Here is what the crowd was like


And this went for miles. 

Kelly got a cracking shot of the leader of the General Classifications Nibali. He is the one in the the Yellow jersey behind his 2 team mates in aqua.


A couple more for good measure.



It was home again to the hotel.

In an attempt to make sure I was going to be ready for tomorrow's ride Jan offered to give me a once over as he bought his massage table with him, I gratefully accepted and went to his room at 7:30pm, it was awesome. We chatted about his experiences with the pro cycling teams, very interesting.

We then went out with the tour guides for dinner, another night shot of Lourdes.


This is what I had, freshly made, I saw the base being made by the cook, very very tasty.


Dinner seems to be getting later and later hear, mostly because we get back late but also because it is light until 10pm.

Looking forward to a ride tomorrow.


























Day 22

Today was a ride from Lourdes to Luz Sauveur with the hope that we could tackle Col du Tourmalet. It was an amazing journey, some pictures below.





We arrived. The ride was very wet but very enjoyable. Unfortunately the weather didn't fine up so we were not able to give this monster of a mountain a go, a good excuse to come back next time. :)


Stopped for a well earned coffee ... oh look today's selfie.


We had a look around this beautiful little town which in the winter is a ski area.


Just over the bridge above is a bakery where I had the best almond croissant I have ever eaten, it was filled with custard to boot!!

This creek/river runs through the middle of the town.




We strolled over the bridge and found this beautiful church on a hill with an incredible view.







We went back into town and found this castle which also had a church inside it.




Oh look another castle on the hill.



This gothic catherderal (wow I am so travelled now *grin*), it in Lourdes.





Look another castle, just can't seem to get enough of them.



More pictures of this interesting church. 





So do anyone know why Lourdes is so famous? ... I didn't.

In 1858 there was a holy event, a Meridian apparition. This is described by Wikipedia (thanks Greg, it knows everything! *grin*) as a super material appearance by Blessed Virgin Mary. Apparently the site of this appearance was the Grotte.


In here there is a spring and apparently a local (or traveller not sure) was told that the waters from the spring would heal him. Now Lourdes is a bit of a contradiction. When we first came into town we thought we had ended up in a Thailand market street, junk from start to end selling everything you can think of religeous. Crosses, statues, badges etc, here is an example.


I mean how many statues a year can you sell!! But the truth is this place is packed, day and night all year round. Lourdes has 5 million visitors a year which is roughly 14,000 a day. The town never stops.

It had been a long day so we went back to the restaurant we we to the first night in Lourdes, and I had the same dish.

Tomorrow is a travelling day.

Until then.