Day 6-Col de Mente

It was good to know that today was our last day in Lourdes. Its chintzy shops with holy water receptacles, innumerable candles and various idols led to the mantra :

"Lourdes is about Lourdes"

being repeated ad nauseum.

The ride for the day was Col de Mente, 1425m climbing, 65km ride. A pleasant bus ride through the countryside deposited us on the outskirts of  Saint-Bertrand-de Comminges. From there, a pleasant ride to Saint-Béat to start the climb was interrupted by an overzealous gendarme insisting that the bridge into the main street of the city was closed to all non-pedestrian traffic 2+hrs before the caravan was due to start. Eric the Viking tried insulting the gendarme's ancestry which strangely provoked further Gallic rage and led us to abandon our bikes by the side of the bridge. Some careful scouting by Le Gateaux revealed that the next bridge upstream was not similarly guarded and surreptitious messages were passed to assemble next to the upstream bridge. Some of the group took the events to indicate that cafe-au-lait time had arrived and ultimately missed their window of opportunity for the Col. Our coterie was hungry, however, and some further exploratory riding got us onto the ascent to the Col with just over 1hr before the caravan was due.

The ride up the Col was magical, cool with waterfalls trickling down sheer granite faces. With approximately 2km to the summit, the beginnings of the caravan hit us, with the gendarmerie impressing us with their ability to tell us in 6 different languages to dismount from our bikes. Some timely cyclocross-style mounting and dismounting led to a bucketload of free booty from the caravan as well as an arrival at the summit in time for the peloton. Notwithstanding some argy bargy from some locals wishing to pick a fight with one of the couples in our tour, a fantastic passing of the peloton was witnessed.

A pleasant ride back to Mauléon-Barousse led to a second viewing of the peloton as it passed through the tiny village. Some small hills on the way back to Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges stretched out the peloton, but 40km/hr through windy backroads passing through small French villages is an opportunity that only comes once in a while, and was not wasted on me.