My Raid Pyrénéen trip (with pics)

[neilski]

cookiemonster said:

Hi

Did you guys book your accomodation in advance, or just find places in the towns when you arrived?

Cheers

Jon

For the Raid itself it was all pre-booked using hotels found using Nokia Maps or Google because the last thing we wanted was to be turned away after riding almost 200km and then having to ride another Cat 1 climb to the next town if we had to.

When we rode back from Cerbere to Caen we just winged it and either turned up on the doorstep of a hotel we were passing or went to the local tourist information office and asked in there and they'd even call the hotel up and check availability for us. The only times we got turned away were a couple of small B&Bs on Bastille Day but found a bigger hotel with rooms available further down the road.

If you do something similar, I'd recommend you go for Chambres d'Hotes instead of Hotels, usually cheaper and with better service and will include breakfast instead of charging an extra €12 for a coffee, croissant & tiny bit of french bread.

[neilski]

Parrot of Doom said:

Another question, while cycling what was your average speed?

On the way up the mountains it was about 10kph and on the way down it was about 70kph!

I think it evened out to be about 20-22kph so not particularly fast but we were carrying luggage and climbing for several hours each day. The total amount of climbing we had to do was about 11,000m.

[g_stacey]

Good pic's and post, looks fantastic. Keep them coming. Rode a few col's around Alpe d Huez Tour time so know what its like.
G

[Parrot of Doom]

neilski said:

Parrot of Doom said:

Another question, while cycling what was your average speed?

On the way up the mountains it was about 10kph and on the way down it was about 70kph!

I think it evened out to be about 20-22kph so not particularly fast but we were carrying luggage and climbing for several hours each day. The total amount of climbing we had to do was about 11,000m.

That's what I'd guessed. I have to admit I find it difficult to cycle that slowly though, whenever I go out cycling I just want to go as fast as I can. After an hour on the roads I'm a bit burnt out! MTB is different.