Col de Peyresourde

June 6, 2023

Done but not pretty

When you have spent the better part of the week at the base of one of the most famous climbs in the Pyrenean section of the Tour de France you just have to give it a go, so I did. I made it but it wasn’t pretty. I had hoped to ride it all with stops but I couldn’t. Although the average over the whole climb was 6.5% I sure saw lotta of 7-8%. There were just too many 11% sections among the 7% sections so I had to walk a bit. However I did ride all of the last km across the top. This climb has almost no reprieve all the way up so it is tough. There were a couple of times when I seriously considered quitting, but I am just too stubborn for that and once I reached the 3km mark to go there was no way that I was turning back. I have my heart graph in the photos but safe it to say I could handle a steady 151 bpm but once it went over that for any length of time I either needed a rest or a walk to bring it down. The day was a bit cloudy and cool so at least I didn’t have to deal with beating sun. Here are some of the stats:

On the way up

Rolling Time - 1 hr 45 min

Distance - 14.2 km

Avg speed - 8.15kph

Feet climbed - 2546 ft

On the way down

Rolling time - 28.4 min

Distance - 15.1km (once in town I took a different route to the hotel)

Avg speed - 31.6

Max speed - 55kph

You could easily have gone faster but not knowing the road I took it easy.

All this to stay I am never doing anything like this again without a motor, I am just too old.