Iconic Tourmalet and getting it right

We have had a lesson in correct pronunciation this evening.

Our overnight stay tonight is at the Hotel de Londres in the beautiful Pyrenees town of Luz St Saveur.

This is the same hotel visited by the pioneering 2006 tour and the popular and generous host, Pierre, has made this year's experience just as special as it was in 2006.

Dinner of vegetable soup, trout (caught this afternoon), pork and pastas was something special. There was also a fabulous birthday cake complete with candles and other illumination decoration fro one of our tour party. Add some local Rouge and Rose and a memorable evening was had to top off an equally memorable day. We would all like to stay longer.

We shared some of our video with Pierre including our bike cam footage of descending Ventoux and Tourmalet.

In discussion with Pierre, we also discovered that his pronunciation of Tourmalet was quite different to ours in that he used the "t" in the word. We asked him about this and he explained the correct way to say the name of the Col was with a hard "t" and that this was the right and proper way in the South of France. A little bit like the use of the "t" in the Moet from Moet and Chandon. From now on, we are committed to getting it right.

Our day began in Lourdes in wet and overcast conditions as we donned rain jackets and headed for Bagmeres de Bigorre.

The wet conditions resulted in us deciding not to first ascend the Col de Aspin as we did not want to risk missing the Col du Tormalet.

We stopped for morning tea at Campon before proceeding on to St Marie de Campon where we stripped our bikes and ourselves to the bear essentials for the assault on Tourmalet.

It was an interesting and varied choice of clothing for the start of the climb. Peter, Colin and Damian opted for jersey, bear arms and legs and caps, Ern and Craig went with full arm and leg warmers and gillets with Ern also wearing water proof booties while Craig discarded his helmet after a few k's. Phil and Mick opted for a mix of all the others. The diversity in attire clearly reflected the un-certainty of the weather conditions. It could be snow, and it could be hot and fine.

As it was, no one made the correct or the wrong choice.

Different sections of the 16 k accent were bathed in warm sun and covered in thick and cold cloud. See new photos in the gallery.

Damian broke away early leaving Peter and Ern to fight it out for second place. Peter defied his own advice of "always ride big mountains within yourself" when he found Ern on his wheel with a few k's to go and promptly ignored his heart rate monitor and went into the red zone to take second place - be it narrowly.

Colin was fourth followed by a rejuvenated and inspired Phil H ahead of Craig and Mick.

Damian and Peter both agree this was the toughest of our climbs to date. Peter even says this way up the Col is harder than the direction taken by the 2006 tourists. From the downhill run, the rest of us found this surprising and are glad we ascended the way we did.

Hopefully the photos in the gallery illustrate the beauty and wonder of this Col. It seems we say this every day, but the outlook was breath taking.

There were two stand out cycling performances for the day.

Phil has been suffering from flu and a poorly adjusted rear derailleur. Both were fixed for this climb and he came home in approximately 90 minutes.

Ern had a sensational climb too and revealed later that Tourmalet has been an objective of his since taking up cycling 2 or so years ago - his first bike being a LeMond Tourmalet.

Colin also had long harboured ambitions to visit Tourmalet having been motivated by Trent D's 2005 account of his visit to the Col.

Mick was also sensational today (as always) and Craig has learned to enjoy long climbs and the experience and beauty they offer. He did it very comfortably indeed.

On arrival, we toured the town including the 13th century fortressed church (although the fortress was only built in the 15th century.

Another great day and another great evening.

I must again mention the great work by Craig and "Pants off Phil" for their sensational photography. Craig is also now running a bike mounted camera as is Mick and the downhill footage is particularly striking.

Photos of Tourmalet are now in the gallery and the new page of Food on Tour is also now up to date including today's crepes at the Col.

Ern is adding great anologue input to route planning and has also become the jersey junkie on tour.

Thanks also to everyone for the blog comments. e-mails and sms messages. They are all much appreciated by us all.

Col d'Aubisque then Pau tomorrow - fingers crossed for some fine weather.