The Hotel2cols is so named because it sits between the Col d’Aspin which finished off my day yesterday and the mighty Col de Tourmalet which was today’s main objective. I was welcomed by a most efficient Madame who told me where to put the bike and showed me my room. It was on the small side but perfectly OK. The shower worked well and the windows opened wide so that I could get the washing dry. Supper, included in the deal, didn’t start until 7.30pm so I went for a stroll round the village of Peyrehitte. There’s not much to it but it holds a place in cycling lore because this is the place to which, in 1913, Eugene Christophe, leading the Tour de France, walked 10 kilometres down the Tourmalet with his broken bike so that he could repair it at the local forge and finish the stage. In those days you could not accept any outside assistance and Christophe was docked three minutes on the grounds that the blacksmith’s son had worked the bellows of the forge. In the event the penalty was meaningless in that he was way behind the other competitors but still finished 7th at the end of the race.

I dropped into the bar on the opposite side of the road for a couple of pints of Blonde beer before supper. It appears that what used to be a large beer is now known as a pint. Mine host was affable but his English was about as good as my French so the conversation was stilted and revolved mainly around rugby. He doesn’t think the French will win, favouring Ireland or South Africa.

Back at the Hotel the dining room was filling up with all nationalities, many of them cyclists. The meal was excellent. A very good vegetable soup with a chicken stock base, a slice of quiche Lorraine to die for followed by beef stew with noodles, salad and roast potatoes. I chose caramel cream for pudding and had a bottle of house red that I took up to my room to finish whilst writing the blog. Really good home cooking without pretension.

The washing was largely dry by the time I went to bed but stupidly I left it hanging in front of the open window as, in the middle of the night I was woken by thunder and lightning and the rain that came with it undid some of the good. I closed the window and by this morning only the cycling shorts were still damp and I wore them anyway. Breakfast was good french with the addition of ham and cheese which seems to have become a staple since I was last in France. The bill for Dinner Bed and Breakfast was a reasonable 96 euros including the bottle of wine. The Patron told me that the weather would be OK after the storm in the night.

I set off at 0857, with water bottles filled at the village pump, to climb the Tourmalet

That’s what it looks like in cold hard facts, easy at the bottom with a few steep sections in the middle. As usual I tried to avoid using the motor until I was really stretched which came about 4 miles into the journey. I motored on in low and passed an old boy on an old style steel bike: he looked over eighty but was going along gamely. All was well until about five miles from the summit the motor suddenly gave up on me. I’ve had this problem before and It’s usually to do with poor electrical connections so I cleaned everything as best that I could. The tricky one is the union betwen the battery and the motor which is down inside the tube and hard to get to. No go: so on I went under my own steam thinking I can always get off and push if necessary. A kilometre later I suddenly felt the motor cut in again and all was well all the way to the summit. Big sighs of relief.

Unfortunately the whole climb was in thick low cloud so there were no views. I arrived in La Mongie, a ski resort about four miles from the summit.

and kept plugging away. The cloud cleared slightly but never enough to afford any views. I looked ahead and the summit was still a couple of miles up some steep gradients

Anyway I made it having used virtually the whole battery and had my picture taken by one of the dozen Englishmen who had arrived from the other side. Not a vey good shot but it’s a record for my album

What would have been a glorious descent yesterday, was totally ruined by the lack of visibility. I followed three motorbikes being sensibly ridden and kept up with them for about 8kms when I pulled over for a drink of water. This is what it should look like.

but sadly not today. The road drops down through the substantial base ski resorts of Bareges and Luz St Saveur, the latter quite busy with late summer visitors. I don’t imagine they do much in the winter so They’ve had to reinvent themselves with mountain biking and parapenting and white water rafting on the rivers Bastan and Gave de Pau. I’d put on two jackets at the top and was still feeling cold when I finally reached the bottom at Pierrefitte some 20 miles from the summit.

As is my wont I managed to get on the wrong road which ended up taking me onto a stretch banned for cycles. I was able to turn round and make my way across to where I should have been, and found myself on a delightful voie verte that followed the line of the old railway from Pierrefit to Lourdes. Nice easy cycling for about ten miles on a traffic free tarmac track (get the alliteration!)

I thought it was a shame not to visit Lourdes whilst it was close to my route. I wish I hadn’t bothered. Never have I seen such an illustration of mammon. It has over 220 hotels, more than any other city in France apart from Paris and caters for 5 million people a year. There are hundreds of restaurants and gift shops catering to the credulous. Want to hire a wheelchair?, certainly Sir, that’ll be 30 euros. I thought I ought to see the grotto where Bernadette had her vision but no bikes allowed and nowhere to leave them. I took a snap of the Sanctuary and gladly moved on. Thinking about it as I rode along, it actually made me angry which is one of the seven deadly sins, so not a very Christian experience.

It was still about 25 miles to Pau where I was staying the night. The road is not very good, it’s main saving grace being that it is downhill all the way. There is a motorway that takes most traffic so the road I was on was quite quiet. It started to spit with rain and I pulled over and put back the jacket I’d taken off on the voie verte. The sky grew blacker and blacker and I was within 500 metres of my hotel when the heavens opened and I took shelter under a bus stop. It was 20 minutes before it had abated enough to move on and I was at the door of the Hotel Adour at about 5pm.