Descending out of the mountains

Fisherman lining the river on Saturday morning.
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After a few tough days in the mountains of the Pyrenees, it was great to start todays stage with only a handful of lowish Category four climbs on the stage profile. Today we would ride the full stage 17 of last years tour from the town of Pau to Castelsarassin starting the haul back north towards our final destination of Paris. The stage was officially classified as a flat stage but had about five Category four climbs to keep the boys honest. On a nice day, we got onto our bikes for the last major challenge of our tour.

More cows but these ones too busy eating to talk to Andy
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Most of the day was spent in the lovely rolling farmland of this southern part of France. Very quiet and secluded country lanes with often only dogs or birds for company. Went through a small town called Vic-en-Bigorre where we saw over 30 fisherman standing shoulder to shoulder fishing a most unlikely looking spot next to town.

Most of the day was spent in the lovely rolling farmland.

Second part of the day was mostly flat and partially downwind, so the boys put their heads down and grinded out the second half before finishing in the mid to late afternoon. We both got a little sunburnt today as a week in the rainy mountains meant we had dropped out of the routine of putting on sunscreen! No great damage done, and just added to the growing legend of Nev’s panda hands. Due to wearing cycling gloves, Nev has very brown arms and white as white hands. Very fetching. Totals for the day; 169.45km in 6 hrs 28min averaging 26.1 kph. Total to date 2265.5km.