Psychlo Ramblings: Day three: Col Du Pourtalet

In the morning we drove into Pau and went swimming in an outdoor pool ostensibly to relax and soothe our aching muscles before the afternoon ride.

After two heavy days in the mountains we decided to stay away from the big climbs and tackle the Col Du Pourtalet. The main motivation was to give the legs a workout but not over stress ourselves before Saturday.

To make things even easier on ourselves we drove closer to our destination and parked up in Louvie-Juzon.

Once on the bikes we set a steady pace on the, now familiar, road to Laruns. The weather was slightly worse than the previous two days with low cloud cover and a persistent drizzle.

At Laruns the road forks. The left bend goes up to the Aubisque and the right heads up the Pourtalet. The total distance of the climb is 29K but a lot of the sections are between 4 and 6 percent with only a few stretches of steeper ascent.

I had been feeling nauseous most of the day and after about 10k was beset with stomach cramps which got more severe as the grade steepened. Gary zoomed off leaving me to my fate.

At about 15k into the climb I had to get off the bike and lie on the grass by the side of the road. After a few minutes I started to feel better so decided to continue on with the ride.

Once I got back into a regular rhythm the cramps ebbed away and I was able to get back into a high tempo, especially on the easier sections.

As I neared the summit the temperature started to really drop and the clouds closed in leaving very low visibility. Then just 500 metres from the top the clouds gave way to the first blue sky of the trip.

I reached the summit and crossed the line into Spain, where a shivering Gary was waiting for me.

After a brief pause to take photos I put on a wind breaker and we set off back down into France for an exhilarating descent.

By the time we got back to the car park darkness was looming and we had banked another 85k of mountain riding.