Day 6 and 7 Val de Pres

Day 6 and 7
Val de Pres

Rest days.  On the first day - based out of the ‘house of Jacques’ john rides 40kms just to keep the legs fresh, Brandi does 20km of that and Chris makes use of the local swimming pool to pound out 52laps.

I take the George Bennet approach and do 7/8ths of sweet f all and snooze my way through the afternoon.

Dinner in the old town complements the day.

Day 7  Val de Pres - Col de Granon
The plan is to drive for a hour or two and ride the Alp de’Heuz but Jacque has a plan.
Lets go and ride my favorite climb - the hardest local hill. It should be more famous.

So we modify the plan and head out to climb the Col de Granon. 11kms from the bottom to the top at 2415m with average gradient 10% i.e. that makes honest climbing but now everyone has legs and none of us find it hard. Sorry Jacques.

It’s a fantastic climb with great views out over the French Alps (although a little chilly on top)

Chris is making his way slowly through a herd of sheep on the road - not realizing that one of the sheep is a patou  -  a sheep guarding Pyrenean mountain dog who takes umbridge with this rider passing through his flock and bites Chris hard on his buttock (well more upper thigh than buttock) But it is a good bite and one tooth left a sizeable hole.  Brandi does some running repairs at the mtn top from her homeopathic supplies in her pack.

We rug up from the car and descend once again into the heat of the valley floor.

A quick stop at  coffee shop on the way home and we lay a smorgsboard of fruit, bread , avocado  and juice sitting in the sun outside the house

Perfect French based riding, but it changes tomorrow as we head south again over the Col d’Izord.

Photos can be found on  flickr