Friday, December 23, 2005

Dreaming of mountains

Aubisque shrouded in fog (2003)
Aubisque

This is one of the tunnels coming off the col d'Aubisque in the Pyrenees.
The road is narrow.
There are random goats and horses wandering about.
The guardrail is pretty useless.
And instead of a shoulder there's just a lot of exposure.

It's a hell of a climb and a white knuckle descent.

This is the type of image and memory that my mind drifts back to this time of year.

2 comments:

Tim said...

what an unreal pic! i couldn't think of more fun than riding that road right row. as i rode home over icy roads with a few inches of snow, fully utilising the studded tire on the front end.

Chris said...

Yeah, both the climb and the descent are amazing. You can finish this descent and climb a short way up to the col du Soulor and then keep going downhill for a long ways just railing it.

Every once in a while you get some dirt and rocks in a turn, which can be very sketchy. After what is probably 25 minutes of balls out downhill you get to follow a narrow road along a gorgeous river valley, ending up back in Lourdes to watch the pilgrims walk through Catholic disney world on the way to the grotto.

It's all pretty surreal, unless you hit a goat coming off the mountain. Then it gets real in a hurry.

I guess the point is...get over to France and ride the mountains. It's the cure for the winter training blues.