.
up to Pal.
This is where the Tour stage ended, but the road continues upwards in a wide left and right sweep to the Col de la Botella. There is a short stretch of twelve percent just before the top of this climb. Next comes a short descent from the top of the pass then a really lonely bit up to 2300 metres, where the road abruptly changes into a track. This is the border between Andorra and Spain. This is mountain bike terrain; the track continues over the border and ends in a tiny hamlet called Tor, from which it is possible to descend a rough road into the Vall Ferrera.
WHICH WAY? La Massana is six kilometres north of Escaldes on the CG4. Continue on that road and turn left at Erts to Pal. For the Col de la Botella continue on this road. The CG4 ends at the Andorran–Spanish border.
Mur de la Peguere
Length: 9.4 km
Altitude: 1400 metres
Height gain: 744 metres
Average gradient: 5.3%
Maximum gradient: 18%
The Tours of Italy and Spain have included super-steep climbs on the routes of their races for many years, but in 2012 the Tour de France started to follow a trend that is really popular with cycling fans. Three very steep climbs were tried for the first time in the 2012 Tour route, including the Mur de la Peguere.
It’s a tiny road that starts at the top of another pass, the Col de Caougnous (944 metres), and the Caougnous is counted in the overall length of the Mur. Mur means wall, and the sliver of road that spears northwards from the Caougnous summit is a veritable wall with an average gradient of 12.2 percent for 3.4 kilometres, with two short but significant stretches of 18 percent climbing.
Sandy Casar of France led the Tour over this new climb in 2012.
WHICH WAY? The Col de Caougnous begins in Massat, 28 kilometres southeast of St Girons – it’s the D618. The Mur de la Peguere is a sharp left at the Caougnous summit. This links with the D17 road to Foix.
Col de Toses
Length: 21.8 km
Altitude: 1865 metres
Height gain: 710 metres
Average gradient: 3.3%
Maximum gradient: 8%
This climb starts just over the Spanish border in Urtx near to Puigcerda and is totally within Spain. It’s a very attractive climb with lots of twists, turns and gradient changes, but it is a main road so can be quite busy. The average gradient is not steep, but there are two stretches of eight percent going up and, infuriatingly, one stretch that descends.
The Col de Toses has only been visted by the Tour de France twice, once in 1957 when Jean Bourlès triumphed, and again in 1965 when the winner was a Spaniard called José Pérez-Francés.
Bourlès was a very talented French rider who won the sixteenth stage of the 1957 Tour de France, but was only a pro rider for three full years, despite legend having it that he was one of the best three bike riders that Brittany has ever produced. The thing was that Bourlès didn’t like travelling, and cycling was so popular in his home region that he could earn enough money just from racing there as a semi-pro rider.
The Col de Toses also has its own legend. Some academics claim that there is evidence of a prehistoric tribe of people living there that were much shorter than other people of the same era and had red hair.
WHICH WAY? Urtx is seven kilometres south of Puigcerda on the N152. Puigcerda is about 30 kilometres southeast of the top of the Col de Puymorens on the N20 and 65 kilometres west of Perpignan on the N116. Continue on the N152 to the top of the Col de Toses.
The Western Pyrenees run from the region around the town of Oloron-Ste-Marie, southeast to the start of the Col du Peyresourde just to the west of Bagnères de Luchon, which if not the geographic absolute middle of the whole range is certainly a convenient place to draw the line.
Like the rest of the range, the Western Pyrenees are far more unpredictable in their gradients and direction than the Alps. The roads, even the scenery, have a less engineered feel to them.
The Pyrenees are generally greener then the Alps. They are lower, they are further south so the tree line is higher – but the main reason for this verdancy is that they see more rain than the Alps. And that is certainly true of the Western Pyrenees, which get the full effect of frontal rain coming in off the Atlantic Ocean.
Oloron-Ste-Marie is ideal for exploring the misty soft folds of countryside and climbs around the far west of this region. Lourdes has the giant Hautacam and the Col d’Aubisque almost on its doorstep. Tarbes or Bagnères-de-Brigorre are perfect for launching yourself at the rugged challenge of the Col du Tourmalet, and Bagnères-de-Luchon is the place for the ski station climbs like Superbagnères or the Peyresourde.
Col d’Aspin
‘PYRENEAN PERFECTION’
Length: 11.9 km
Altitude: 1489 metres
Height gain: 785 metres
Average gradient: 6.6%
Maximum gradient: 5.3%
WHAT TO EXPECT
Not too long, not too high and not too steep. The Aspin is a great place to start mountain climbing in the Pyrenees. It’s no push over and it has a great Tour de France history, but the Aspin is fairly unique in the Pyrenees in that it climbs the mountain on well-engineered roads with plenty of hairpins to break the ascent down into manageable bits.
There’s a little taste of true Pyrenean character just after halfway, where the bends stop and the road is thrown straight at the climb’s steepest part. It is ten percent gradient here, steep and exposed if there is any wind, but this stretch doesn’t last for long before another sweeping hairpin takes you up to the gently rounded summit.
The town of Arreau, which is a key settlement in the Aure valley with a castle and a museum of local life, nestles at the foot of the Aspin. It’s squeezed into a thin ribbon by the mountains that surround it, and its houses are tall and grey, and capped with steeply pitched roofs, an indication of the rain they get in this region.
The rain makes this area good for farming. Not for crops but cattle, which graze freely on the slopes of