Sunday, June 19th – Bagneres-de-Luchon to Viscos
Today’s weather was looking just about perfect – sunny skies and temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s. On checkout the desk clerk said the weather from here on out will be great, and added that the roads in Spain are in much better condition compared to France. “They only pave the Tour de France roads! Watch for lots of gravel.”
A pleasant enough ride led us to our first pass of the day, Col de Val Louron-Azet. Only a couple hairpins on the way up, but you could see for miles from the top. While stopping for pictures (of course!) we were approached by a guy on a small bicycle who tried in vain to engage us in conversation but spoke no English. After a bit he pointed at the motor on my bike, then ran over to his bike and pointed out his small electric motor. “The same!”
Coming down from that pass we passed through a VERY tiny and VERY twisty little town that was wall-to-wall hikers. Like hundreds of them, most of them middle-aged and above. Had to weave around them to get through the town.
Had a fantastic ride up D929 to the dam at Lac de Cap de Long, really an epic road. Lots of it running through the woods, then climbing and climbing with great mountain views all around. Some sheep (of course!) made it even more interesting. Was hoping for a quick snack at the little café by the dam, but it was only serving full meals so settled for a Coke to recharge the batteries a bit. One of the nice things about the Dolomite passes is pretty much every pass has a refugio at the top with snacks, drinks, souvineers and sometimes meals.
It might have been possible at one time to continue past the dam, but it looked like an avalanche had closed the road – and likely for some time to come.
I don’t recall if it started on this road, but for the 2nd or 3rd time today we heard Peter say “this is a surprise, this looks way better than it did on Street View”. This would become a recurring theme of the trip – roads either much better, or worse, than they appeared on Google Street View. You see, Peter doesn’t just look at maps and plan routes – he also checks out large portions of the map from Street View, flying along and seeing what it looks like. Dedication, dedication.
Today was going to be a day of spur roads, out and backs, so we headed back down D929 then over to D118 and snaked our way up to the desolate ghost town of Piau-Engaly. A nice enough ride up that I was eager to repeat on the way down. Most of the uncertainty and doubt I had been feeling about riding the first couple days was gone today – maybe the sunshine helped, maybe the perfect roads, or maybe just getting some saddle time in and feeling comfortable again was the trick. Whatever it was, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.
Next up was a sweeper ride up on D173 (on blacktop for a change) up to the tunnel heading into Spain, where we turned around and headed back the way we came. Lots of sheep on this road made it hard for cars to get by. Not that there were a lot of cars – in fact this trip so far we were seeing very little traffic.
On the way to the tunnel into Spain
Nice bike parking!
Artsy
Looking back towards tunnel area
Stopped for an outdoor lunch and chatted a bit with some bikers from Belgium who come to the Pyrenees for a week of high mountain riding almost every year. They said they have nice roads in Belgium, but for altitude they have to come to France.
Got a kick out of this “drive-through” church that spanned the road. No choice but to roll through it.
Gassed up after lunch and headed up D918 for the 2-pack of Col d’Aspin and Col de Tourmalet. Col d’Aspin had a really remote feeling to it, very green and big long sweepers and just bendy bits of road, not much in the way of hairpins or technical corners.
Heading up Tourmalet was pretty intense as it was completely enshrouded in fog and we couldn’t see more than a few car lengths in front of us. Knowing that there were huge drop-offs somewhere off to the side in the mist didn’t help. At the top, though, the fog cleared and the view down the other side was just spectacular. We got some pictures of the apparently famous cycling statue, watched a nice Lamborghini Aventador roar by (first real exotic of the trip, surprised we hadn’t seen more on the road), and headed down a really spectacular bit of road.
After a great ride down Tourmalet we got to the town of Luz-Saint-Sauveur around 6:45 and hoped to get some dinner before heading to the hotel just a few kms away. Peter had mentioned the hotel was pretty isolated and I didn’t want to get stuck with limited options for food – I am not an adventurous eater by any stretch of the imagination. We parked the bikes up in the town square, and tried a couple promising looking restaurant/cafes, but no one was serving food until 7:30. Not wanting to wait an hour to even order food we packed up and rode on to the hotel.
Very Python
The hotel was on at the top of a long uphill road up the side of a mountain. I was surprised when we pulled up – the place looked perfect for a romantic getaway with your significant other, not someplace a bunch of bikers should stay. A lady from the hotel suggested 2 places we could park the bikes, both of which were non-starters. First suggestion was to thread the bikes into the garage past several classic roadsters, and there was quite obviously not enough room to do so. Next up was a ride down a very steep cobblestone path, across a gravel driveway, then around an uphill gravel hairpin, and into some garage. The downhill path looked OK, and it opened up into a perfectly nice and private paved courtyard. No need to wander past that and onto the gravel path. We agreed to park on the courtyard, and broke out our disc locks for the first time.
Pre-checkin parking
(photo by Dave)
This does not look like a biker hotel
Peter was first to tackle the path to the parking
No drama for Dave
Our parking for the night
One suggested parking was to continue down this gravel path towards the white car, then make the uphill hairpin to some other area. Pass.
Room for the night was nice but nothing special compared to what the place looked like on the outside
My view didn’t suck
Dinner at the hotel was prix fixe, and the courses held no appeal for me so I just opted for the dessert. No mention of prices were made so I had no idea what it would end up costing me. It was delicious though! We walked around a little bit after dinner, but there wasn’t really anyplace to go on the mountainside. Definitely someplace to come back to with the wife.
The dinner cottage
Some tasty Penlforth Brune. I don’t care if it is owned by Heinekin, it was very good
My dinner for the night. It was very, very, very good.
Done for the night
