Bonus & Wendy's Big Adventure . . . .

[Bonus]

On Sunday morning Wendy and I, along with our friends Jeroen Spoelstra & Marce Xirinachs (from Unbeaten Adventures) drove through to France to ride the climb that goes from the Pyrenean town of Saint-Lary-Soulan up to the ski station at Col de Portet.

 

This climb, which is 16.4km long and rises 1338m, will feature at the end of Stage 17 of this years Tour de France. The summit sits at around 2215m - so the views were spectacular.

 

We all did the ride on our MTB's and we all had a fantastic day. 

 

Afterwards on our way back to Spain we stopped beside the river at Le Pont du Moudang for a picnic. Casa Vino courtesy of Ramon the friendly Farmer.

 

 

 

[Bonus]

Halfway up the climb, a map of the ski runs for the two ski stations, Pla d'Adet and Col de Portet . . .

[Bonus]

5km to go . . . stunning views.

[Grey Hubs]

5km to go . . . stunning views.

How tough was the climb?

 

Beautiful!

[Bonus]

How tough was the climb?

 

Beautiful!

 

 

To give you some idea, it's longer, steeper and higher than Alpe d’Huez . . .

 

On an MTB it wasn't hard, but of course it was slower. Lots of road bikes passed us, all in first gear. I was in 3rd or 4th gear and they were quicker. We want to go back and ride it on road bikes but I need to change my cassette first. My "Good for Jo'burg" cassette doesn't cut the mustard in the mountains! 

 

Coming back down the road bikes couldn't touch us. We crushed! ;-)

Edited July 11, 2018 by Bonus

[coppi]

Great stuff......I think you need new Movistar kit ????

 

 

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[Bonus]

Great stuff......I think you need new Movistar kit

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My kit is fine thank you very much!

[Bonus]

This week we're having a "Friday morning Hike" instead of a Thursday morning hike.

 

Walking with our friends Jeroen Spoelstra and Marce Xirinachs.

 

We're going to get some fresh air, some exercise and talk some business . . .

 

Exciting times ahead :-)

[Bonus]

Tomorrow we're heading up the road to France to catch Stage 17 of le Tour.

 

We have a Plan A and a Plan B - let's see how busy the roads are and which plan we need . . .

 

Either way we'll be there to cheer the riders up the climb we rode a few weeks ago on our mountain bikes!

 

:-)

[Bonus]

Not going to get to France!

 

Gutted because I love the Tour but some things have come up that we need to get done. There will be other tours . . .

 

????

[Wannabe]

 

[SwissVan]

Not going to get to France!

 

Gutted because I love the Tour but some things have come up that we need to get done. There will be other tours . . .

 

????

Ja ja you just want to watch the whole stage live on tv....

 

 

Bad luck Bonus, I’m sure there will be other times ????

[Bonus]

We had our first swim this year in our local river today after a picnic with our friends.

 

It was lovely!

 

 

Europe is cooking at the moment!

[Bonus]

We've had my Dad and my step-mum here for the last week. Today we drive them back to Barcelona where they will catch a boat for a few days on the Med before flying back to SA from Rome.

 

They've had a lovely time and we've enjoyed showing them some of our favourite local places. My step-mum even swam in the local river with us :-)

 

Will be sad to see them go, but we have lots of new plans that will keep us very busy for the next few months . . . .

 

Onwards and upwards!

[Bonus]

My MIAS (Mountain Bike Instructors Award Scheme) qualification, certificate and ID card arrived in the post.

 

I'm now a fully registered MTB guide with a European approved organisation!

 

:-)

[Bonus]

As I'm sure most of you know . . . . 

 

"Plan A" was to come over here to Spain and convert the barn we bought into a B&B.

 

We would cater for everyone but we would specifically offer extra services to make visiting cyclists lives easier. The extra services would include MTB Guiding, Lifts to distant routes, Packed Lunches and/or Picnics at beautiful meeting points out in the countryside, Laundry Facilities for cleaning kit, Workshop and Bike Spares available etc etc

 

Thanks to problems securing finance for the renovation project, we've now had to move to "Plan B".

 

Plan B consists of trying to implement some of the "extra services" without actually having the accommodation for people to stay in. It's much much harder than offering services to people that are "staying under your own roof" because you have to find the people, but we're giving it our best shot, as we try to do with everything, and hoping that this will grow while we try to find an answer to the problems holding up Plan A.

 

I'm qualified to guide people now and I have made good friends with a guy from Holland, Jeroen, who is also a Guide and doing the same sort of thing as me. We're "the same, but different" which is nice. We complement each other. We're both advertising our own businesses far and wide to try and capture a bit of the market and we ride together/help each other out whenever we can or is necessary. It's certainly good to have someone you can bounce ideas off and call on in an emergency. 

 

An added bonus - his wife Marce, from Costa Rica has become good friends with Wendy. They are both very social and very extrovert so they get on like a house on fire. They are making their own plans regarding the Picnics and Packed Lunches side of things. 

 

Marce speaks fluent Spanish - so she's the group interpreter for everything we need in Spanish and I'm the group interpreter for everything they need in English.

 

It's working out well so far and we're looking forward to the future . . . . . .  :-)

 

 

Bonus.