Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Three Cols

Etienne (my son) was over for a stay at the start of August and we did a bunch of tough bike rides, the hardest of which was the Three Cols. You can read more about it here, but the name describes it pretty well. It's a triangle, starting in Barcelonnette and going over 3 cols, each with 1100m or so of climbing. Only 120Km, but none of it is flat.

We started early, planning to do at least the first climb in the cool of the morning. There were feed-stations on the ride, so we didn't have to carry too much food. Wonderful scenery, but as the day went on fatigue and heat seemed to obscure the view. Etienne and Ray went ahead on the last climb and I struggled on by myself.

The ride ended with a argument in a car park. A driver crushed Etienne's back wheel as we were putting the bikes back in the car. The "French" view was that it was unreasonable to expect a driver to see something that doesn't move on the ground. After 15 minutes of animated debate, sanity kicked in and a satisfactory conclusion was reached.

More pics.

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