Col Du Tourmalet ride today

What a beast of a climb was my overall impression of today's ride. A simply unrelenting uphill climb. Very few hairpins and long relatively straight uphill sections of 9% with spikes to 10 and 11 % gradients.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/99525477

Now that I have uploaded the Garmin files, the altitude gain is astounding and it is our highest reached so far at 2115 metres compared to the other climbs so far of Solour (1471m), Aubisque (1709m) & Luz Ardiden (1715m) but we will outdo even Tourmalet's height in the Alps with Galibier at 2645 m.

What also astounded me today, was the picture of today's ride in Garmin Connect and you see the red circle showing today's ride in comparison to the size of Southern France/Northern Spain. Makes this part of Europe look very small !!

The below image is interesting as we climbed so high today that once we climbed up to Tourmalet we were at the same height as the mountain in the background.

Ride up the Valley to Tourmalet

The below pic shows the view about 7 to 8 kms from the top. We'd just climbed up past that dam in the image as well as the village in the far edge of the background.

The below shows the view from the ski village but we still had a few more kms to go upwards !!

and of course the obligatory pic at the top !!

If you look closely you can see the black tarmac road snaking it's way down the valley. A long, steep and exhilarating descent. You go as fast you want / can. There's a few bumps in the road on the way down and small rockfalls but this is the way the pros raced and in the same stage then raced up Luz Ardiden to the finish of the stage. In fact the pros in Le Tour raced up and over Tourmalet on exactly the same path we had just ridden. Hard to imagine racing up two such large mountains. Puts things into perspective.

Looking forward to uploading some more video too as Alex used the cam today to climb Aspin and then Tourmalet. That's punishment. No wonder he noticed his look in the lift mirror tonight and thought he looked 'buggered'. In fact we had all had it by the time we were back in Lourdes today. Tomorrow's a welcome rest day as we transit over to Provence to ride the very famous Ventoux on Monday.