Day 4

We started from our hotel on a very chilly Andorran morning, so gilets and arm warmers were the popular choice of dress to get going. Although the morning is described as chilly, the group had to descend a fair way into town and the speed was quite fast but controlled. This made the morning chill seem extremely cold and I would not be surprised if most of the group were wishing that long fingered gloves would have been the better option. We rode through the town before we got to our first climb of the day. By this time the morning temperature had risen, or maybe the efforts of cycling single file through town had warmed us up a bit. When the climb started in earnest it was definitely time to unzip the gilet and roll down the the arm warmers to the wrist. Then, when I tried to put my cassette into the "granny" cog to spin up the hill, there was a noise that could only mean that the chain would not sit right in this gear. So, stopping at the side of the road I attempted to index the gears myself. Fortunately John (a guide from AQR) rode up beside me to see if all was alright. He had a twiddle with the indexing barrel adjusters before he adjusted the rear derailleur stop screw. BINGO, the chain would now go up into the easy gear and off we went. By this time I was well behind the rest of the group and I knew that it would be pointless trying to get back towards the front. Still maybe it would be best to concentrate on working my way up by closing down some of the back markers in front. I started to overtake a few and then saw Jonathan in the distance taking things nice and steady. I eventually caught up with Jonathan and greeted him with a cheery "alright Jonathan?"
It quickly became apparent from the look that he gave that we were not going to hold a conversation, so I stopped while things were still good. I eventually caught up with Richard and Dawn and was grateful for a bit of company until we reached the top of the first Col of the day. Coll d'Ordino is a Strava Category 1 climb, 6.9Km with an average gradient of 7%.  This was one of the easier climbs that have been attempted so far (in my opinion) but still a struggle in places. Coll d'Ordino was the first of three climbs of the day which would take us from Andorra, into France and the back into Spain. That is the 3 Country Challenge done twice then in my book.

Craig at the Coll d'Ordino

The descent down from Coll d'Ordino gave us a taste of the views that were to be offered to us today. The scenery was stunning and when the road levelled out it was the ideal opportunity to stop and take photographs of the view, with compulsory bicycles in shot and a skinny, old, silver bearded person to spoil it.


Following this picture opportunity the road descended again down the side of the mountain. The views were spectacular with walls of rock being passed on either side as the road snaked down towards the border of Andorra and France. At the bottom I met back up with Richard who descended the mountain road far quicker than I did. From being a nervous descender in Swansea, he wasn't showing it now.


We met up with the mechanical support van which was parked just a little way up the second climb of the day, Port d'Envalira. Jason had twinged his hamstring and appeared to be in a bit of pain. He looked gutted that his ride might be over for the day. After some discussion he wanted to carry on as far as he could. The only problem was that  we had to climb up the Port d'Envalira, which just happens to be the highest road crossing in the whole of the Pyrenees. That is 27Km of climbing to get to the top with average gradient of 5%. Hard enough with two fully functioning legs, let alone one. Anyway it was agreed that I would ride with him as far as we could get. I took the lead and kept a slow but steady pace, taking the full brunt of any headwinds. Eventually, to my amazement,  we did manage to get to the very top together. Chapeau Jason (as they say in cycling circle around these parts).

Jason and I then descended down the other side which had fast switchbacks on a fairly technical descent and we made it to the bottom and through border control. This took us back into France for a while, where we climbed our third and last Col of the day. It was somewhat surprising that, when we got there it did not seem that we had climbed too far at all. We met up there with three more of the riding group, Aaron, Craig and Dawn. Still, that was the third climb of the day ticked off and now we could concentrate on arriving in Spain. Most of the ride was downhill and a welcome relaxing experience, at least it was before the road levelled out and we were heading directly into a strong headwind ending the ride in the Spanish enclave of Llivia which is a part of Spain, even though it's completely surrounded by France.