Stages 12

OK, finally a chance to make my "daily" report.  It's Sunday now, and this is what happened Wednesday... It took us a while to get out of Toulouse in the morning and that led to a late start to the day, around 10am.  The thunder storm of the previous night had only let up a little and the day would start in the rain.  On top of the rain, there was a strong headwind for the first 100km of riding, so that really slowed the pace as I made my way toward the 3 categorized climbs of the day.  Does HC (hors categorie) count as a categorized climb, or does being "beyond" category mean that it isn't categorized?  Biggest mystery of the Tour so far... just ahead of a two-way tie between french business hours and french street signs.

In any case, around 130km into the day the road hit the Pyrenees and went skyward.  The first climb was a cat 1, La Hourquette d'Ancizan.  It was my first ever cat 1 climb, and at about 10km and an average of 7.5% it was also the longest and steepest I'd ever done.  My computer seemed to be having trouble with the gradient, and even said at one point it was 61% when it was closer to 1%, so I can't really say for sure, but there were definitely some flatter parts and some parts as steep as 12%.  It got pretty cold in the rain and wind and the top wasn't very comfortable.  It actually reminded me of crappy mountaineering conditions.  I had to descend pretty slowly in the fog and got so cold that I was shaking uncontrollably.  Luckily my dad was at the bottom so I got in and cranked the heat, had a snack and then set off for my first ever HC climb.

So that brings us to the Col du Tourmalet.  17ish km at an average of 7.3%.  And it turns out that the fist 5-7km probably only average about 4%, and the last 10 or so km average closer to 10%.  It was a gruelling climb and seemed to last forever.  Finally got to the top, freezing cold and soaking wet.  Not looking forward to the cold descent.  But I had a quick warmup in the car at the top, then we made our way down, slowly.  With the cold, wet roads and zero visibility, we didn't really have a choice. 

So now, cold and wet still, 9 hours into the ride, and it was getting dark, I set out up another HC climb to the mountaintop finish of Luz-Ardiden.  Over 13km at and average of 7.4%.  As a reference, Cypress and Seymour are closer to 10km at about 5%, with Seymour being a little longer and steeper, but not by much.  The ride up this last climb was pretty cool though, as the road was lined with fans camped out for the next day's stage finish.  Lots of rowdy and drunk fans cheered me up the climb, especially the Basque fans (my new favorites).  The Basques were all decked out in orange and trying to pass me beers or even giving me a push.  Not that I don't appreciate the other fans cheering from their seats while they eat the delicious smelling bbq'ed dinners, but they've got nothing on the Basque enthusiasm. 

In the end I finished up top in the dark, exhausted and cold.  Soaked to the bone, and a 2 hour drive to our hotel in Lourdes ahead.   I had to change as we drove down through the hoards because we didn't have much time to spare to make our hotel in time for check in.  We finally got to our hotel around midnight and I passed out pretty fast, just after setting my alarm for dawn the next day.   203.01km in 10:23:12 for an avg speed of 19.6km/h and avg power of 156W (177W normalized).  That's over 10 hours at my highest avg wattage for the trip so far... plus around 12-15000ft of climbing.