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No, that’s not correct. If you zoom in, you’ll see that it’s just a set of straight line segments. It doesn’t even follow roads, so the elevation is meaningless. According to my notes, we climbed 80,000’ for the entire tour, including the French half. Most of the climbing was on the Spanish side though, probably 50-60k in 17 days.
2 years agoLooking at this, if it were divided into 12 days, that would be 10,000 feet of climbing a day. Is that correct? That is so far out of my abilities as to be laughable . . .
2 years agoI thought I our maps were toast when we transferred our journals from CGOAB, but miraculously, or more accurately, through pure blind luck, when I got my first (and only) Garmin in 2012 (a simple edge 500 that is just a dumb recorder ... and still in use), I also 'signed up' for Garmin Connect. Largely unbeknownst to me, every time I plugged the Garmin into my computer, it downloaded, and kept a record of, all of our rides. Luckily I did this every few months, but never realized that all of the rides and tours we did since 2012 (when I bought the Garmin) were safely archived in Garmin Connect. I discovered this just before our 2019 CPH to Lecce tour, our first on CycleBlaze, when I was playing around with RWGPS interface and noticed you could link it with Garmin Connect. Low and behold I discovered that our entire touring history from 2012 was available, and it was a relatively easy job to put the maps into all of our journals here (all 3 of them! not like some of the veterans here!). This info is probably not of much use to you, but if you do have, or did have at some point, a Garmin Connect account, your rides might be available.
We have two shortish tours from 2012 (a circle route through Normandy starting and finishing in Chartres) and 2013 (Rhine source, Andermatt, to the sea, The Hague / Amsterdam) that we have all the map data thanks to GarminConnect, pic's, and even better, K's hand written diary notes. Next snow day (we always get one in May) I'm going to start putting them up here.
Thanks for reading along, Lyle. FYI, I plan on going back and adding maps one of these rainy days. The originals got lost when we posted over to CycleBlaze, but I’m pretty sure I can still do a credible job of recreating them.
3 years agoScott and Rachael, I’ll echo Keith’s sentiments. Insightful reflections and a wonderful tour. Very happy to have stumbled across it after four years! Very typical for me though 🙄. Never have been one to be completely up to date.
All of the ground you covered would be completely new territory for Kirsten and me and it certainly has us intrigued.
Thanks for the glimpse into this part of the world through your adventures.
Mais oui bien sur!
3 years agoHarrowing experience but so happy to see you came out on the good side. Foix looked like a great place to convalesce.
3 years agoAren’t you ever going to see spring up there?
Yes, this was an amazing tour. Even with the salmonella poisoning it was an incredible experience, and definitely one of our best tours. I’m glad I had a reason to go back and reread this myself recently, because there’s so much I’d forgotten about already. There’s hardly anything I’d change about it, save for the illness of course.
OMG
3 years agoLove this pic! Snowing (again) in Canmore this morning so I’m poking around Cycleblaze and I stumbled across this journal. Looks like it was an amazing trip. I’ve seen so few journals of trips in the Pyrenees and this looks just wonderful. Definitely on our radar now! Thanks for another entertaining and enticing journal.
3 years agoThanks, Rich. This was such an amazing, priceless tour. It’s really hard to believe that so much happened in less than six weeks. There’s so much I’d forgotten already. It’s really a good argument for keeping a blog.
It’s thanks to you and Robin that we were reflecting on this today, btw - I came home from coffee this morning and found Rachael talking about long term visas and looking at rental properties in Narbonne!
Great journal! Your perseverance through all the challenges is impressive. If you ever come back this way, look us up. There’s lots more in the Aude worth exploring!
3 years agoAnother reunion this summer would be great so keep us posted when you plan to be here. Doc gave me news to expect 6 week recovery period for my back. While the injury happened doing a little yard work it may have originated from a mild concussion playing hockey a couple weeks ago. I do recall feeling a odd sensation in my lower back on that next shift. Better stick to biking.
4 years agoNot surprising that you missed this one Keith, since it was from a couple of years ago! I’m sorry to hear about your back. Hopefully it will be back to normal soon, the rains will back off, and you can get out on the road again.
It looks like we’ll be back up your way for a few weeks this summer, by the way. Maybe we can have a CycleBlaze reunion and strive for a new record.
A 4,200 foot descent is plenty on it's own, much less while ill!
1 year agoDo you still have the Pendleton wool shirt? Perhaps because we are in the wrong season now, I don't see you mentioning it.