Haute Route Pyrenees, Stage 6. A good day.

Stage 6, penultimate day. This was a longer day and some decent climbs, I was thinking the stage would not suit me too well with the descents. On the plus side it did have a type of summit finish. With the following descent neutralised and then a random 10k rolling on little lanes timed. Very odd. I had felt good on the Time Trial yesterday and took confidence from that. Kind of knowing that I was in the ball park with climbing. So the first climb was tricky to start then flattened for a few k then kicked for the final 10k or so. In short a good tester. I decided last night that I would get to the front as soon as we hit the timing mat (which was 2.5k outside the town), then try to spark things up early.

I woke up had my standard secret formula (aldi’s porridge), was feeling good still so wanted to keep to the plan. We rolled round the town and then started to climb. We were still in convoy but we soon saw the timing mat. I stood up and steadily increased the power, then thought why not make it hard straight away. I guess I put down a minute or two of pressure then looked around, selection was made already. I would say we were a group of ten or twelve. Excellent. I popped the pressure down to tempo type pace for a couple of minutes then thought a good idea would be to up the pace again. I did this a few times to test out people a bit, I was still feeling good and the group was in a line so they were having to work a little bit. The road then dropped in grade and we were poodling along a false flat for a few k. I dropped the power and relaxed.

Once the road picked up again after 15 minutes or so I put the hammer down again, this time gaps started to appear. I sat up a little to recover, then hit it again. I was strangely starting to enjoy myself. I had a gap with only one guy for company, strangely it was a guy who we had food with last night, Andrea an italian with perfect english (thankfully). We continued to plough on with no need for more accelerations, the damage was done. I would say we had a minute on people towards the top of the climb, we had a little tiny descent then we were onto the next climb, only a short one but they all count. We stuck together, both working. I said to Andrea (he is a very good descender), “you have to go down without me and you can win today!). The German guy had counterattacked the mini group and we has half way across the gap. I sent Andrea on his way and I stopped at the feed station for more water and some banana’s.

As I re started after the stop I descended for a few meters with the German chap but he was too fast so I let him go, safety first. By the time I got to the bottom of this long descent the race leader Cyril and the American guy Tristan I think caught me. We worked together for the 10k of valley which was good. Just as we hit the start of the third ascent we spotted the german guy, but no sign of Andrea. This was good, he had been on the podium 5 times but not the top step. He really had a good chance today. The next climb I sat with out mini group on the front but seemed to start to edge away. I just did my thing and soon I was 100m from them. I was also catching the German geezer, he looked to be standing quite a bit where as I think he usually stayed seated when he is comfortable so I decided to get on with it and catch him. This happened half way up the climb, still no sign of Andrea. I tried to attack the German but he was good enough to claw me back, I was only attacking him as I knew I would need some time ahead of him to descend. He then asked to work together, I reluctantly agreed and we summited together. He then left me on the descent but not by much, he knew like I did that there was 35k of valley to cover until the final climb so he sat up and waited for me, that was good and wise of him. I am ok on the valleys.

We worked the valley and eventually arrived at the foot of the final climb. We had just spotted Andrea ahead. We turned right and it kicked up nice and steep, I tried to carry the speed from the flat and got a gap, so pushed on. Within a minute I was with Andrea, surprisingly we did not see the german guy again until the end. The final climb was split into 2 sections. The final 6k was not too steep with a couple of flats and even a little downhill. The first, pretty horrific... long long sections of 12-15%, maybe 3k. Really was what we needed at the end of the day in the baking 30 degree sun. We rode mostly together, I congratulated Andrea for staying away for pretty much 100k on his own. We basically decided between us that we would climb together and both cross the line exactly the same time. He had been on the podium 5 times and after the day he had deserved it. We summited the first 6k, did the two minute descent and then it was my area, the lower gradient where my extra weight (belly) would be beneficial. We had also just passed a feed station, we were both low on water and my new friend also wanted a gel so we stopped super fast. I could tell the effects of the day working on his own were now effecting him so I kept the pace high but not flat out. I was aware we could not arse about too much with the others behind. This is not like the Tour de France where they get regular time gaps. We used our necks to turn round and guess how far people are away from you!

We passed the 5k to go, meandered our way past all the stray horses and cows. These were obviously in the middle of the roads poohing all over the place. We were both keen to get a glance of the 1k to go marker, after what seemed like ages there it was and on the horizon the the finish line too. A little bit of a down then one final rise to the finish. I was encouraging Andrea through the last few minutes, then he rolled level with me so we crossed the line together. Job done. We then waited to see who would be next through the line, I was surprised how much time we had made over everyone.

In the end Andrea moved into the leaders jersey and I am now second. With the American guy (Tristan i think) third. I was very pleased again today, especially with the way I hit the climbs, and attacked. It is really odd how I feel muscular wise as good now as I did three weeks ago. If the knee disappeared I would be in good working order. So tomorrow we have a nice “easy” stage. Only 1800m of climbing and around 70k of the stage timed. There is in theory a chance I could get the 40 something seconds I need to get the overall win but it is not at the top of my list. I now have the second win of the week, I am happy with that. Finishing safely is the one aim for the day so I should then win the Three week race.