19 July St Girons to Lourdes
01.08.2010
Today we leave our chateau at St Girons and headed for the famous Lourdes. Lourdes is a catholic pilgrimage with people from all over the world arriving to be blessed by the Holy-Water, and receive miraculous healing's - all stemming back to the (18) apparitions of Mary to Bernadette Soubirous (now St Bernadette), so now Lourdes is one of the largest catholic shrines in the world.
Lourdes is also a pilgrimage to the lycra brigade; yes thousands of cyclists are based here being right in the centre of the most famous cols of the pyrenees...
Todays ride leaves our chateau early, following much of todays Tdf tour route to the town of Bagiry; 70 km today with lots of steady climbs - todays route has a special place in Tdf history, passing by the Fabio Carsatelli memorial near the base of the col de Porte de Aspet. Notice lots of other tour groups like ours from all over the world riding the route today (except we ride faster!), so lots of 'bonjour's' as we ride past today. Also the campervan crowds lining the road again support us on with much cheering and 'allez, allez' allez'.
The ride starts out level passing through many small villages before our first climb up to the col de Porte de Aspet - incredibly beautiful and again a nice steady gradient and smooth road - but no shading from the sun so very hot today, lots of sweat........lots of chalk names written on the road near the top today, famous cyclists like Armstrong/Contador. Crowds in the thousands near the top of the col cheering us on - wearing the NZ shirt today so a few 'go Kiwi' heard today. Waited at the top of the col while the Tdf race caravan, and then about an hour later, the Tdf riders rode through - much excitement with the spectators in a real buzz today. Then a slow descent down to the col to the memorial of Fabio Carsatelli who died there (crashed) in the 1996? Tdf - not surprising he crashed here - a fast 17% descent on a corner and straight into the stone-wall.....a humbling reminder you need to be careful......
