So we convened on a glorious sunny morning, in fresh mountain air, ready to do the 50 miler through a few Pyrenean ski resorts and down the valley to Ribes de Freser.
It was a steady, but no less hard climb on tired legs out of Matemale. Adding a couple of hundred metres to out over night point, we were all pretty warm when we got to the top to commence a long decent towards Bourg Madame.
Stopping briefly in a village a couple of miles down the decent, Dave M lost his footing whilst stationary & toppled off his bike. As is often the case with these things, he got more than he deserved & put quite a large hole in his knee. Fortunately we had a Dr on hand to remove the lump of gravel & dress the wound 👍🏻 and bind it all up with brown insulation tape.
The remainder of the decent was very pleasant & we took a deviation through the Spanish enclave of Llivia, a very upmarket looking ski resort, before descending into Piugcerda and having our first Cafe con leche. Yep, we had reached Spain 🚲💪😎
The coffee was accompanied by little light elevenses, which was just as well because we didn't eat again until later this evening.
Out of Puigcerda, the road ran pretty level for about 5 miles, then we started to climb. Pretty gentle initially, but then it started to ramp up as we got to La Molina. It was Tarmac meltingly hot too & with the wind to our rear (😜) it felt as though we could do ourselves a bit of harm if we weren't careful. So, a stop for a cold Coke in La Molina was sensible. It proved to be a good move as we then got into the steepest part of the climb, up to Super Molina.
We then rejoined the main road to Ribes as it levelled out to a steadier gradient up to the Coll de la Creueta at 1888m
That was the climbing done for the day thank goodness. The last 15 miles was all downhill to Ribes. What a decent. Good road surface, little traffic and seemingly endless bend swinging. We all rolled down it rather than attack it, which gave us chance to drink in the stunning views as we descended. So it was that we arrived in town at about 4 pm having had a harder fifty odd miles than any of us were perhaps anticipating.
After a quick beer & a bit of wound management for Dave M, it was time to get sorted at the hotel.
Nice little village/town:
The Hotel La Cacedors was good, but for some barmy reason we chose to eat at the Hostel round the corner. Not a good choice for six hungry cyclists 😩. Memorable for the wrong reasons!
Chocolate & nuts on the roof terrace then:
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