When I last left everyone (in September 2002), I had just finished a two week tour of southeastern and south central France with four good friends. Remember the Tour de Alpin story? Well, as we lay relaxing by by the pool of our hotel in Nice, we just had to start planning our next trip. The ideas flowed freely, er, maybe that was the wine….
In any event, we decided on cycling the Pyrenees in southwestern France. This mountain range is also traversed by cyclists in the Tour de France. We didn’t know what the Pyrenees held, but we just had to tackle them. So we left France and returned to our respective corners of the world — Dave to Denver, Dick to Manchester, Robin and Terry to San Francisco Bay area and me to Minneapolis, dreaming of more mountains to climb.
For various reasons, we were not able to gather for our next adventure until 2005. Dave, as Directeur Sportif, started planning the details of the trip months (maybe years?) in advance. I significantly changed my training in hopes of bettering my race outcomes. I had also purchased a couple of newer vintage race bikes that would make climbing mountains muuuuch easier.
Fortunately for us (but Dave, mostly), information about routes, accomodations, etc., advanced significantly in just the three years since the Tour de Alpin. He found a number of books and web sites that advertised a few almost ready made tours of the Pyrenees. Don’t get me wrong, it still took significant work was required to book accomodations and schedule everyone’s time.
For most of us, we had been following Dave to many corners of the globe with bicycles and lycra in tow so preparation for these trips was becoming almost mundane. However, each trip has its unique perils, with the Pyrenees no exception. Again, my bike was the only double chainring rig in the lot. But I had been warned, the Pyrenees contain much steaper roads; consequently, I had my wonderful mechanic (Hollywood Henderson) install a compact chainring set. Did these even exist three years ago?
The plan was to fly to Toulouse, France, recover from the plane ride and complete setup of bikes and sag vehicle the next day, and then drive to the Atlantic coast for the start of the trip. Then we were to spend 10 days cycling over the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean coast, drive back to Toulouse, tear everything back down, and then fly home.
Well, with the exception of some minor glitches courtesy of the wonderful Transportation Security Association, the trip progressed flawlessly and we completed our cycling plan. I even think we were still all friends after this trip and would go on another of Dave’s Excellent Adventures!
Sooo, make sure you have a good internet connection and a few hours to spare, here goes Dave’s, Dick’s, Terry’s, Robin’s and Russ’ Excellent Adventure…..
First, the players. Sorry, I didn’t get current individual photographs of everyone, just the various group shots during the trip:
- Dave Evans — Directeur Sportif
- Terry Dahl — long time friend of Dave
- Dick Venes — longer time friend of Dave
- Robin Ash — long time friend of Terry
- Russ Loucks (me) — long time friend of Dave