Ride Day 7—15 Sept 2005—64000 Pau to 64400 Oloron-Ste-Marie

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">My wife, as navigator, designed a very circuitous route so that the roughly 20 miles as-the-crow-flies distance from Pau to Oloron-Ste-Marie was expanded to over 60 miles.</span> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">It included almost every “green” marked road on the map between Pau and Oloron-Ste-Marie.<span> </span>Aside from D27, which was overrated by its green marking (nice riding but flat with uninspired terrain), all roads were excellent.<span> </span>And since we were now getting into the foothills of the Pyrenees, we could sometimes see a beautiful wall of somewhat misty mountains from the top of some of the foothills.<span> </span>There was some reasonable shoulder or bicycle lane along parts of D2 and D9, the two higher traffic roads of the ride.</span>

Background:<br /><br /><br />My wife and I have been doing self-supported tours in Western Europe (a majority in France) since 1993.  This series of rides covers our 2005 2 month route through parts of France.  Our beginning and ending point is near Chaduri (south of Angoulême) where our friends have a farm with Gites and Chambres d'Hotes.<br /><br /><br />We rode our Dawes touring bicycles purchased in 1993 heavily loaded with 700Cx32 tires.  All of our riding was on paved roads, mostly with very little traffic.<br /><br /><br />If any questions, feel free to email me at jeffkadet@netdiving.com<br /><br /><br />Jeff