Euro Tour Day 18

What a day! I suppose that frase will be used again during this tour, but we will get to that later. 

Breakfast was at 07:30 like usual and 08:00 we bid our hosts for the past three days, good bye. Overal is was a very interesting experience. Their hospitality was beyond reproach. Last night they had some guests for dinner and although they did not ask us to join them, they did invite us to have some "apperatives" with them. The conversation was  quite difficult, but some information was shared. Afterwards we had the bagguettes, chrizo, cold meat, cheese and a rice salad for dinner. We only ate half a bagguette each and made lunch for us from the rest. 

As we rolled out onto the route, we were immediately were taken onto some cycle paths and back roads to stay away from the traffic. One of these was quite a rough and rocky road and after 3.56 km we had our first mechanicle of the trip. One of the rocks gave my rear tyre a sidewall cut and it went flat immediately. I stopped and got my puncture repair kit out. Put a plug in pump it up, hoping it works as sidewall cuts are sometimes difficlut to seal. Ride a couple of yards to test it and find that it is still loosing air. Try to punmp it hadrer. This time it works and holds for the rest of the day. The other day, while riding out of Sossello on a very rocky road I was very causious and aprehesive about the possiblity of getting a puncture on these rocky roads. Now it happened!

We wounded past farms and through small villages. Once the route, as per the app, did not exist! Fortunately there was an escape route to a tar road further up. We also came across a big pool of mud and back tracked a little to find a road around it. Most of our "deviations" away from the main road was on smallish tar roads servicing farms. Once we came to a dead end at a farm and I noticed that I actually missed the turn off a few meters earlier. 

Once or twice we had to use the main road, but mostly we were riding next to it. At about 10:00 we stopped for coffee. After 3:30 riding time, during which we covered 27 km, we were guided onto a tar road to our left. My Garmin stated that we are about to enter a section of 15.3 km and 1,202 meters acsent! The road was in a good condition and the gradient was not to bad, so we tackled it. Up and up we went and at 30 km the app took us onto a rough track to our right. Danie gave this one look and said that there is no way that he is going up there, taking into acoount the injuries he is carring. We agreed that he will turn back and make his way to Syne les Alpes, where we plan to stay tonight. 

So here I go. Intially the track was not to bad and I actually managed to ride parts of it. That was until I reached about 31 km. Now it got really rough and I had to get off and push. I noticed the distance on Garmin at 31.34 km. From there to about 33 km took me nearly 2 hours. At some point I saw 34% on my Garmin! Most of the trail was on the north side of 20%. The track was quite rocky in places, but generally I could push my bike, but the gradient made pushing a real effort! Every now and then I will see something that looks like a flat only to discover that it just leads to another steep section. This was Freedom Challenge stuff. Excellent training for the Freedom Challenge, just six months too early. I now was on "The Stairway to Heaven"!

I always "conquer" these challenges by telling myself that there will be an end and every step brings that end closer. I had visions of sleeping on this hill tonight as my progress was so slow. After 5:45 since was started this morning, I finally got to a road. It was a reasonable jeep track. This wound its way up the mountain for about 2 km. At this point I was guided onto a very rocky and steep track going up the mountain. The gradient here was between 7-12%, so not that bad, but unridable. So up and up we went. 

Garmin has a "climb on" feature which tells you the length and meter acsent of the climb. As you then go the length and the meters decreases. As the progress earlier was so slow, I switched to a different screen not to be discouraged, so I had no idea how much of the 15 km climb was still left. I just soldiered on! After about 7:30 riding time, the road started leveling out and was ridable wounding its way around what looked like a dry lake covered in grass. I could also saw the ridgeline a few hundred meters further on. 

After 7:45 and 35 km I finally reached the top. My fear had been that the descent will be as bad as the acent, but just before I reached the top of the ridgeline I saw a dwelling and a Fait Panda next to it. Now if a Fait Panda could get up from the otherside, then the road must be in a beter condition than what was behind me. Cresting the top I was greeted by a reasonable gravel road going down the otherside of the mountain. So the decsent started. The view was out of this world and really worth all the earlier effort. I could see for mile and miles and miles! 

Going down was fun. The road was quite rocky and with this mornings puncture in the back of my mind, I took it east. The gradient was also quite reasonable. That was until I got to the top of Montclar Ski Station at a hight of 2,046 meters above sea level. At first the downhill was reasonable but the further I went down, the steeper it got. I was averaging 16-24% downhill. My speed seldom went above 10 kph, it was just too dangerous. It also started getting cold, so I stopped to put on another jacket. 

I finally reached the bottom after nearly 9 hours of cycling. I looked at WhatsApp and saw that Danie was 6.4 km away, but his location did not indicate where I was so I was not sure which direction I should go the get to him. Google Maps also did not work! It was bery frustrating! Danie sent me the address of where he found place for us and after a while Google Maps got going again. I click on the link, found the road I should take and started riding in that direction.

After 9:36, 59.72 km and 1,923 meters of climbing my day finally got to an end. Oh, what a day! At the end of a day like today there always is the satisfaction of knowing that you conquered something big and got out the otherside on one piece!

It actually is a shame that I can no longer post pictures on my blog because that could have helped to high light some of the scenes I have seen today. I do post most pictures on the WhatsApp group so if there is anybody who read the blog and are not on the WhatsApp groups  please let me know either through comments to the blog or on my number +27828251782 and I will add you.