Pyrenees
 

Hi,

Next week I'm leaving with some friends to go cycling for about a week in the French Pyrenees. We have made some routes to ride with our gps, we want to climb Col d'Aspin (from Arreau), Col du tourmalet (from Luz-Saint-Sauveur and from Sainte-Marie-de-Campan), Hautacam, Port de boucharo (col des Tentes), Cirque de Troumouse, Luz-Ardiden, Col de la soulor, Col d'Aubisque, Lac de Gloriettes, Col de couraduque, Col de bordères, Pont d'Espagne and Lac d'estaign.

We would like to know if there are some people on this forum who have already climb one or more of these cols? We were wondering if the roads are wide enough, if the roads are in a good state, if there aren't too much little rocks on the roads and so on. Just to make sure that the aren't any cols in my list that are actually very dangerous when you go downhill. I know this isn't a problem with the well-known cols (tourmalet, aspin, hautacam, luz-ardiden, soulor and aubisque) but it can be a problem on the less-known cols. So is there anyone on this forum who has already climbed the less-known cols in my list and who can tell us something about the state of the road, if they are beautiful or maybe tell us that we shouldn't climb them? (bad road/dangerous/not beautiful,...)

Thanks in advance!

I was down there a couple weeks ago when the Tour went through and rode the Aspin and the Tourmalet. Didn't ride the smaller ones but drove over a couple. For the most part the roads were good, never saw anything that I would think twice about riding.
You could do an awesome day linking up the Aspin, Peyresourde, and the Tourmalet. We stayed in Luchon, nice alpine ski village, if a little touristy.

Thanks! We have a house close to Luz-Saint-Sauveur, on our first day we are going to climb Aspin, Tourmalet and Luz-Ardiden :)

Do you know the names of the ones you drove on with the car? It's just because we aren't all great in the descent, some info before starting the climb would be nice, you see. :)

I was in Switzerland about two months ago, and went on a the routes that the tour followed I believe it was stages 15 and 16.
I really wouldn't be concerned about the roads there. Cycling is so popular in eastern to middle Europe that you shouldn't need to worry about road width. The cars do in fact share the road, and respect the cyclists over there. Something that North America has to learn yet.

Well, I'm from Europe actually, and my experience is that sometimes when you pick the smaller roads (less known cols) that the roads can be a hobbly and with little rocks on it (dangerous when descending). Went to Italy last year, the region around Firenze, and when we took the small roads it was just too dangerous, they were too narrow with almost impossible curves... A truck was on the hill when we were descending it, right after a curve, my friend had to brake full and fell of his bike next to the road.

Someone has told me that you can also have such roads in the mountains (on the less known cols), and since cyling is becoming more and more popular I thought there would be some people who already rode these cols, would be more fun to discover the bad roads in advance, would be too bad if we rode 40K to a col with a bad road :)

I rode several of those climbs last year (Pailheres, Chiola, Aspin). I stayed in Foix. The back side of Pailheres was actually pretty bad pavement. Most of the rest of the routes I took had excellent pavement.

If you're doing the Soulour and the Aubisque, be sure to take in the Spandelles. It makes a great loop, and the Spandelles is the quietest and most peaceful climbing road in the area.

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path...oulor-Aubisque

Wish I were going with you, lucky stinker. ;)

Thanks, I'll add that one to our stage! :)