Ironman France - Friday
Jun 20, 2008
It's friday already, it's hard to believe. I intended to go swimming early this morning, we all did, but I guess the Jet lag caught up to me. Or maybe it was the coffee I had with dinner late last night. In any case, I was up for a few hours in the middle of the night and that pretty much took care of my early morning swim idea. Instead, the four of us doing the Ironman elected to drive the bike course instead. So after taking care of some errands, including finally getting a cash advance on my credit card, we made our way onto the Ironman France bike course.
The first 20 km of the bike course if fairly flat and, while there are no completely straight roads like we are accustomed to in Canada, at least the general direction was comparatively straight: 10 km out to the airport, hang a right and more or less straight for another 10 km. It's after 20 km that the fun begins.
For 120 km, we travelled a road that had no straight lines and no flat sections. The entire road meandered up, down, and along the side of mountains. Along the route were dotted various quaint French towns either perched atop a mountain summit or nestled in the shelter of a valley.
The town of Gattieres perched atop a summit.
Another town nestled in a valley.
About 50 km into the bike, the course begins to get really interesting. From the town of Tourette de Loup, the road winds steadily upwards for the next 20 km, cresting somewhere around 1000 m above the valley we started in.
Looking back towards the town of Tourette de Loup.
Looking back from the town of Gourdon.
About 2/3 the way up this climb is the town of Gourdon where we stopped for lunch and where I had possibly the best sandwhich I've ever eaten. It was the Club Poulette, and featured a large french-sized bun the side of a small french stick sandwiching a meal of chicken, swiss cheese, tomato, lettuce, egg, and the special ingredient: a mayonnaisse-dijon mix that tasted like heaven. Wash that down with a cold Heineken and life doesn't get any better.
Looking back from the town of Gourdon.
After Gourdon, more winding road until finally a plateau where the landscape becomes more barren and the road is shared with wispy clouds. I mean that literally; we are driving through clouds at this point.
The road west of Gourdon - more winding, more climbing.
Once the Plateau de Caussols has been reached, most of the climbing is done. That's not to say that there is no further climbing. On the contrary, the road continues to meander up and down. It's just that now it's more down than up.
So anyway, the night is getting late and I'd like to get to bed so I'm going to fast forward the bike course, skip over the pasta dinner including the answer to "How do you squeeze 7 adults into a Ford Focus, and head off to bed. If I have time I'll return and edit this post later in the trip to provide more detail.
Here the road takes an interesting turn down a very narrow lane through the middle of the tiny town of Greoleres.
A picture tells a thousand words.
The approach to Coursegoules just before the out-and-back section.
