Trans-Pyrenees

26 posts

Having been in the recovery position for a couple of days now (if you can call cutting the daily mileage in half and avoiding the odd hill “recovery”) I feel I am ready to broach the subject of doing things you thought you’d never be able to do. I can confirm that Mr Roy Castle […]

22 May 2016

Thank you for watching.

I had imagined our final day – our triumphant descent to the Atlantic coast – to be warm, sunny, downhill and accompanied some kind of fanfare (Eye of the Tiger, The Final Countdown or something like that on brass). But it wasn’t to be.. Despite delaying our departure for an hour or so in the […]

20 May 2016

Eye of the Countdown (The Final Tiger)

I am so pleased we didn’t rush this bit. Despite our repeated (bordering on desperate) requests for salad last night, we were presented with a plate of all things fried, with some extra fried things plonked on top and a small dish of what tasted like Heinz tomato soup as a garnish. Breakfast was a […]

18 May 2016

No entiendo ensalada

We have a confession to make. After the day we had yesterday we decided to give ourselves a break. On deciding this we were lucky enough to stumble upon, what is quite probably the nicest place we have visited so far. The hills in this area of the French Pyrenees look like freshly cooked muffins […]

17 May 2016

Lost in France

No breakfast for the hungry. Having eaten all of the “spare” food last night we had 40 kilometers before us with nothing but gummie bears, a small amount of stale bread and anything we can find lurking in the bottom of our rucksacks for fuel. Food has definitely become fuel on this journey. I find […]

16 May 2016

Cold. Hungry. Tired.

We timed our day off well. We watched the rain fall all day from the comfort of the hotel bar where we sipped coffee and ate Spanish omelette (good, but not as good a Luli’s). some time to sit in a white box and stare at the wall As well as escaping the rain, I […]

16 May 2016

Broken links

For those of you who may have thought (myself included) that, as we near the end of our epic challenge, it would all effectively be “down hill from here”… think again. Today’s climb provided us with some of the most beautiful views we have seen to date as well as some significant thigh burn (she […]

13 May 2016

It can’t be that steep.

Today was the day. I shall remember it always, the day I made it up the mountain before Gez…. To those of you who know Gez well (the same man who ran across the Alps for fun shortly after we first met and has competed in the UK national mountain bike championships) I can tell […]

12 May 2016

Race you to the top?

While we successfully dodged the big thunderstorm the other night, we were always going to get caught in the bouts of of rain that were due to follow it for several days. Today was one of those days. It was raining when we woke, still raining when we left the campsite at 8am and continued […]

11 May 2016

Rainy McRain Face.

As some of you will be aware, we narrowly avoided a massive soaking last night (thank you weather app, we owe you one). Our hotel room was very comfortable (thanks for asking) and I finally had the dinner I have been dreaming of for the last week; a plate full of green beans that definitely […]

10 May 2016

If you go down through the woods today…

A number of people have asked me about the gear we have for undertaking this trip. Here’s a little summary of what we have with us and how it is working for us… Bike luggage: All the bike mounted bags are from Alpkit – a UK company the makes good quality, functional and good value […]

9 May 2016

Gear Trans-Pyrenees

All the gear…

Our night and morning in Castejon de Sos revolved around getting my bike running again. Thanks to the Pyrenean fixer, we were ready to go by 11am – a very late start for a 60km day taking us over 2000 meters, but at least I’d be able to stop at the other end. As we […]

8 May 2016

Where eagles dare…

My bike, a race-bred Yeti ARC, has seen better days. Aside from all the creaks and squeaks she’s developed over the first 300 miles of the Pyrenean beating: the back brake is empty – no oil, nothing at the lever. The front could do with a bleed too and I have had to put a […]

8 May 2016

The fixer

Today’s story is all about how just much of a quiet word we would like with the chap who wrote the route we’ve been following. Footpaths can be lots of fun on foot however, Pyrenean footpaths, on mountain bikes can definitely do one ….particularly the really thorny bits. We were doing well this morning and […]

6 May 2016

Feeling a little flat?

Have you ever seen a pack of vultures dinning on the carcass of a cow? It is actually quite scary…. and yes the collective noun for vultures is a venue but that sounds more like we’ve been out clubbing than scaling the Pyrenees… Out route today has been mostly by road following local knowledge that […]

5 May 2016

The vultures are circling

Our ride to Os de Civis yesterday was fairly uneventful compared to previous days but it was incredibly warm. Despite the locals warnings that today’s route was covered in deep snow and impassable (by 4×4 and quad bike at least), the 40 kilomtere ride over the high mountains was lovely and only required a few […]

4 May 2016

It’s All in the planning…

¡Holá! Or should we say Bonjour? I am sure you will be pleased to hear that we were back in the saddle again today. I am writing this post from Andorra and feeling very pleased that we followed our host’s advice and stayed an extra night in the mountain refuge (Cap De Rec). The smell […]

2 May 2016

Más vale tarde que nunca!

“¿Systema Cole-man?” Si! The shopkeeper headed off into the back room. He had a look of contentment available only to the sole vendor of screwtop gas canisters in Spain. After some rummaging (or perhaps a fist fight with a Pyrenean bear of Slovenian descent) he returned, smug face intact and gas canister in hand. Yes, […]

1 May 2016

“¿Systema Cole-man?

One of the many nice things about biking in the mountains is that you can creep up on the wildlife quickly and quietly*, like this fella, Alan. Alan is a friendly marmot who lives in the Spanish Pyrenees, not far from the borders with France and Andorra. Alan has lost his friend Steve. For anyone […]

1 May 2016

Alan!

The clue is in the name…. My birthday consisted of 14 hours in the saddle with side orders of snow, freezing fog, blazing sunshine and then the darkness. The snow looked quite pretty when it started falling but we are in the real mountains now and snow means trouble, especially when you are travelling super […]

1 May 2016

La Bastida

Just in case any of you have been wondering (…and I’m guessing you all have). Pushing a fully laden touring mountain bike up hill to 2145mtrs above sea level to then try and ride it down a series of partially snow covered ski slopes that sit on top of some very slippery scree is, without […]

29 Apr 2016

Yes, I am sure it’s a lovely ski slope…

Today has been all about uphill slog, heavy rain, cows and low cloud… In between rain storms we have been picking our way through fields of horned cows and their new born calves. The cows have very strangely shaped udders and humps at the back of their neck up here in the mountains so we […]

28 Apr 2016

Big udders…

Some things that I have learned since I started cycling across the Pyrenees: 1) Bears live in these mountains! Slovenian bears in Spain – one can only imagine what el correo diario would make of that. Ok, the footprints we found may have been a very big dog, but I can’t think what would have […]

28 Apr 2016

Here, there be bears…

Transporting our bikes by air to our start point was (much to our surprise) quite painless and with the support of our friend Kenny so was the late night journey into Barcelona. We spent the following morning putting the bikes back together and packing our stuff into the frame bags. We got the 14.16 train […]

28 Apr 2016

So far, so good…

Ok, so this is it… Our bikes are serviced, we’ve got all the bits and bobs we need, just one more party to go to and a bit of frantic packing and we’re on our way to Barcelona.. While checking the route over I have discovered something – it looks like there is over 27,000 […]

23 Apr 2016

Measure twice, cut once.

Raising funds for the Bedford Hospitals Charity & Cancer Research UK

20 Jan 2016

Bikepacking the Pyrenees