Ride Day 13—23 Sept 2005—65250 La Barthe-de-Neste to 09800 Saint-Lary

Today we departed from the Hautes-Pyrénées Department, spent a few hours in the Haute-Garonne Department, and arrived in the Ariège Department as we descended from the Col de Portet d’Aspet. This was another wonderful ride with great roads and outstanding scenery.

Today, in contrast to yesterday, the double-arrows shown on the map for the climb to the Col de Portet-d’Aspet were real…and took a lot of effort and time to climb. Yes, this was a long hard slog.

Along the climb, there was a monument to Fabio Casartelli, a bicycle rider who had been with Team Motorola along with Lance Armstrong in the mid-1990s and in the 1995 Tour de France, where he died in a crash on a descent of this climb that we were now on.

Background: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.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.If any questions, feel free to email me at jeffkadet@netdiving.comJeff