La Statue de Danton

 Getting Out After a Day of Rain

Team Eguishein

It's been raining pretty much all day today apart from about an hour in the middle of the afternoon. Much like what we had two days ago when our friends Jo and Jose arrived. The weather didn't look too bad yesterday if we didn't try to go up into the mountains so, when Jo and Jose asked what I had on the agenda for yesterday I suggested we have a look at a ride out to Tarbes.  When I was investigating a ride that might offer a bit of distance I discovered there is a statue of Danton in the middle of Tarbes in front of the Hotel de Ville. No one seems to know why it is there, as Danton never set a foot in the Pyrenees. I thought it might make an interesting destination.

We set off down the voie vert from Argelès-Gazost towards Lourdes, dodging puddles from time to time. Just a little after Jose took this photo of the group in front of him ...

... I shot this little video of the surrounding landscape and the group from in front ...

Jose is pretty good at moving around the group when riding a bike, as well as using his phone to record the action ...

After about 13 kilometres the bike path finished and we started to negotiate our way around Lourdes towards the steep hill that I mentioned in the post from the 3rd of September. 

As he normally does, Jose led us up the hill by some margin and waited at the top to take photos of the rest of us struggling behind ...

We regrouped at the top for a spot of recycling ...

... and then continued around the corner for the first of the day's highlights but not before Jose took this beautiful photo of Jo and Dianne ...

One of the reasons for doing this ride with our guests is that Dianne and I were both keen to revisit the descent that follows, and share it with them. Here's part of it ...

There was some gorgeous flatter riding for a while through the countryside ...

... and then through a town which had an iron cross planted in the middle of a rond point ...

... and then we arrived in the town of Soues, home of the brilliant boulangerie/patisserie that I mentioned in my first post. I refrained from photographing all the decadent and delicious temptations for a second time but could not resist paying homage to the beautiful basket of baguettes ...

Just up the road another 5 kilometres or so we arrived in Tarbes, the administrative centre for the region and found our way to the statue of Danton ...

Another 15 or 20 kilometres down the road we came to a fairly small, quiet town with quite a large and impressive cathedral ...

The rest of the ride involved a meander back towards Tarbes, a loop to the west alongside, across and back along the River Ousse, most of which was brilliant but the road that took as back along the south bank of the river was a little rough in places. I did manage to take this photo of Di along a relatively smooth section ...

 We had a stop in Lourdes for a feed then back along the bike path to Argelès. 

Unfortunately things don't always turn out quite how you'd like and a couple of videos I shot passing the cathedral were corrupted, which is why there is nothing to show from our passage through the town.

I'll conclude with an image and cross-section of of our route for the day.