France 2016 Day 9 - The Pyrenees - Tourmalet

There are signature climbs in all areas. In the Alps its Alpe d'Huez and the Pyrenees its the Tourmalet. Whether these are the best climbs is debatable for somehow they have build the image or mystique that makes people want to do those climbs. In the Pyrenees the climb I wanted to do was the Tourmalet - its the highest if nothing else.

The climb starts in the village Luz-Saint Sauveur and although this was only 9-10 miles from where we were staying I decided to drive over. The road up to Luz-Saint Sauveu runs through a very dramatic river valley, with a few tunnels and sheer cliffs.

I parked up for free (as always seems to be the case in France), got ready and started the climb. Its signed right in the town square and goes up hill straight away, so I needed to take it very easy at the start to avoid blowing up immediately. This was made worse by the high temperature, so it was a challenging start. Its about a 12 mile climb with an average gradient of 8%.

Apart from a few small sections of flat (a few 100m or so) the gradient was pretty well constant all the way. The flattest part was near a car park and cafe complex about 8km from the summit.  The hot weather meant pacing was very important - there were some shaded sections which gave a bit of respite but the rest was full on sunshine, particularly after the cafe.

There were quite a few riders (compared to other climbs in the Pyrenees) and whilst I was passed by a number of riders I also reeled in and passed about the same number myself. About 2-3 km from the summit I saw a rider with a Devizes Cycling Club kit. He really was from the club and we cycled together to just below the summit. He had cycled further than me already and was due to meet some club mates at the summit to ride further. Cycling and talking to someone else passed the time very pleasantly and before I knew it we were about 1 corner away from the summit. I did squeeze out an unsociable spurt of speed and pulled away to the summit.


Having been climbing for 2 hours it was great to reach the top. Given its iconic nature it was full of other cyclist, tourists and general sight see-ers.

A tough climb, but a real sense of achievement. Sitting back afterwards I felt a couple of minutes might have been gained by not chatting to the Devizes rider, but it was a more pleasant experience and segment time is not everything!

Here's some required photos of the top:

Here's my Scott at the top

This was the climb up

This was the climb up - another view

Here's a video of the latter part of the ascent:

Here is my Strava Ride data: Tourmalet

Here's my stats for the (whole) ride, including the descent:

On the longest segment I placed 5098 out of 12560 - so in the top 50% so I was please with that. However my time of 1:10:00 was just under twice the KOM holder - Thibaut Pinot so it puts into perspective the difference between a fit amateur and a full out