I've done a quater of it!!!
St. Girons (397m) , up the valley, through the cig-paper factory (poo). A very nice and gentle rise
up the valley, which seemed rather a narrow road, up through oust and encre, past a rather
interesting post-industrial landscape of water-powered sawmills.
Aulus-les-bains (724m) we stopped for well over an hour, had a small pichet of wine. Entertainment
as the cafe manager almost kicked off with a bloke passing in the street.
Anyway, from there it goes up with an average slope of 7.4% with a maximum of 8% - thats rather
consistent. (aren't the french good, almost like the runs on a ski area, they all have statistic
signpost just for us). Amusingly you pass the "[censored] valley" on the way up. (but at this point we
broke a spoke- bugger!).
At the top (1110 m) you get to cycle past ski-lifts! Anyway, the part that is interesting comes
next. Descents with hairpins. In my version, we both sit upright, which allows air braking to let us
stay at 40 mph. As we're only equipped with 2 V-brakes, stopping at every second hairpin to allow
the thing to slow down. God knows what they'll be doing - pedalling down like madmen and slamming on
the anchors on the bends. If they do we may well see some more popping tyres.
Anyway, from there more reasonable slopes, at the town of Seix (another amusing one, no the i makes
no difference to the way its said), they'll be turning up another big hill, where we went back to
St. Girons.
Anyway - it took me all day, and we got back so late I couldn't go for a swim (well, after I changed
a spoke too (still got the scars)) , in the 4* hotel that cost less than a UK B+B. I bet they'll do
my stretch in an hour.