Pyrenees Challenge Blog

STAGE 2 - Saturday 27th September
St Jean Pied de Port to Gurmencon - 110 km - 1343 metres

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Blimey!  What can we say, didn’t expect that kind of start.  It was supposed to be a gentle start.  We thought our lungs were gonna blow up on the first bit but got right into the swing of things.   It was the first major climb we had done but not the last!   The climb was epic and we got to see plenty of animals on the way.

It was gentle at the start and then suddenly started to elevate which was pretty grueling! First was the Col D’Hatza (7 km, 782 m, 7.2%).  Once we got to the top and started to hit the downward stretch we went for it on the way down and just touched 70km’s per hour in some areas.  Loved it we did!

We then followed the Col de Burdincurutcheta (6 km, 1135m 5.9%).  It was pretty spectacular. This Col was in 2 parts, firtly there was a climb for 5 kms, a rest on a 1 km flat stretch then a final  5 kms. The scenery was pretty amazing and prevented us thinking about the pain too much.  This Col is in 2 parts - with a climb for about 5 kms and then a rest on a 1 km flat stretch. The final Col was the Col de Bagargui (7 km 1327m, 4.7%).  We passed through some scenic villages like Larrau and Arrette before stopping at Gurmencon.

There was an epic lunch provided for us by the amazing crew from Gondola and Fred’s team.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Pyrenees Cycle Challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.