Day 7: Honeymoon's Over

Today would eventually take us up to the summit of Col de Peyresourde, but not before some typical blog-enhanced drama. Gluttons for punishment, Tom Mark and Mike made one final visit to the 'House of Pain' to get breakfast (mainly cakes) while Greg remained in his default position: motionless in a deep sleep. We propped Greg up at the table where we had arranged our bakery haul and this time the buttery pastry won the battle against Greg's slumber and he inhaled a pain-au-chocolat followed by a ham-filled croissant and apple tart, then woke up.

Before we were released from the high security facility we had to pass an inspection of our 'flat' by the suddenly drill-sergaent like receptionist. Upon handing over the key, Tom and Mike were frogmarched up to our room and made to stand in silence as the guard meticulously checked every cupboard and surface for any square millimetre we'd forgotten to clean. Fortunately, we'd been equal to her high intensity sweep with an early morning clean-up operation, executed by Mike with military precision. What seemed like hours passed as beads of sweat began to dribble down the lads' tensed faces. Finally, unable to find fault with our pristine domicile, she gave a frustrated grunt and nodded. We were free.

There was one final hurdle to the freedom of the open road. Our in-house cinematography team wanted to get a 'killer shot' using the the hotel's dark underground garage as a set. The plan was to film the Raiders mounted on their metal steeds emerging from the darkness as a row of fluorescent lights flickered on following their progress up a long straight ramp. Unfortunately, the other hotel guests either didn't agree with the artistic direction the film was taking, or thought their need to load up their cars and leave was more important than us getting the shot. Either way, the result was Tom, Mark and Greg standing silently with their bikes at the end of a shadowy corridor for about 45 minutes while several French families walked in front of Mike's camera set up carrying their luggage.

Every time a car left the garage and it looked like the timer-controlled lights were about to go out, another family would emerge from a side door and switch the lights on. This was repeated about eight times until we were on the verge of giving up through frustration and embarrassment. Finally though, the stage was set and with two 6 year old twins clawing at the door and about to burst through, the lights finally went out, plunging us into total darkness – perfect conditions for the first frame of the shot! Mike leapt into action, simultaneously flicking the light switch and record button as we shot forwards, charging up the corridor and kicking the encroaching children out of the shot. It was a blissful moment of relief as we wheelied out of the slowly opening garage door and into the bright light of day. Freedom!

As was becoming the pattern for a typical Raid day, the riders waved goodbye to Mike and began a long and shallow climb throughout the morning. We swept through the grimy industrial quarry town of St Beat and turned left and with little warning, we hit the Col de Peyresourde. Mark was dropped early on the lower slopes, even with Tom suffering heavily from his share of the team cold. All bike-mounted team members put through their paces as Mike eeked out every ounce of our effort to achieve the most dramatic GoPro shots possible, bellowing instructions from his director's chair behind the wheel: “Make it look really epic!”, “Do heavy breathing” We had no problem or choice in complying.

The extra effort frequently put us into what elite cyclists call the 'red zone', and what we call 'knackered' and Tom and Greg started to wander if they'd burned out too early. Meanwhile further down the mountain, Mark was grappling with problems of his own. Specifically his broken front derailleur, which he was heroically attempting to reach down and manually push over to the correct cog. The combination of wildly spinning metal and soft flesh eventually resulted in the inevitable laceration, which Mike was on hand to patch up with a hastily set up skin graft, bandages, a morphine drip, finished off with a little tray of jelly and ice cream.

Tom and Greg were feeling the effects of the morning's exertions and combined with the depleted oxygen at high altitudes, they wandered deliriously off the pre-determined route up a steep side road, mistaking a particularly rigid sheep for a 'Peyresorde Summit' sign. In a deluded state of heroism, they stood up on the pedals and stormed up a what they thought were the final 4 kms of 12% gradient to impending glory. What they found instead was a freezing, fog covered town and no sign whatsoever of a summit. Getting more disorientated, emotional and cold by the second, Tom finally managed to make his frozen fingers input Mike's number into his phone and miraculously the trusty support driver appeared like a mirage minutes later. The boy's panic at hearing Dad had beaten them to the 'real' summit was quickly engulfed by relief that they would soon be tucking into hot chocolate and pancakes.

It was the first time Dad had reached a summit before Tom and Greg. The significance of this feat was not lost on Dad, who with a sickening sense of inevitability made sure the boys were well informed of his victory when they turned up cold and bedraggled at the summit's wooden cabin. Our finance minister Mike ordered up crepes sucrees and hot chocolate all round as we pored over a book of ancient photos of Tour de France heroes climbing legendary mountains. 

The hut was run by an old mountain man who cheerfully ruled over a dominion of pancakes, hand-made honey and wooden puzzles. As soon as we'd snuffled up our huge plate of crepes, he thrust a selection of these old fashioned toys our way, expertly showing us how to solve each one, before leaving a pile of wooden pieces for us to arrange. The most worrying aspect of this surreal exchange was that he'd just gone through exactly the same performance with the French toddlers sitting on the table next to us.

Once we'd thawed out we left the cozy warmth of the cabin, knowing all that remained for the day was a quick descent down to our target for the day: Bagneres de Luchon. Layered up against the cold, we flew round the swooping switchbacks while Mike filmed the action from afar, perched precariously on an old ramshackle wall at the top of the slope. We reached Luchon in a matter of minutes, and immediately got a good feeling about it as we rode into town like conquering heroes. Maybe it was the sheer concentration and variety of bars lining the town's streets.

With flashbacks to our hostile reception in Barcus, we found our 'chambre d'hôte' resolutely locked up. We sat in the open patio area admiring the stylish furniture and waiting for Mike to find parking, carefully considering which bar to go to first, when what turned out to be our host, Daniel arrived to let us in. Our fears of a frosty reception were soon put to rest as our mega friendly host welcomed us in, offering us beers and coffees as we all sat around chatting. It could have all been a gentle lead in to address elephant in the room - that Dad had actually booked a 'family room' with bunk beds suitable for 50kg 13 year olds. One look at the muscle-covered Raiding Team confirmed to him there had been an administrative cock-up, but fortunately he had a spare room, so to our relief we would all sleep in a bed. As Tom and Mike entered their love-heart covered honeymoon suite however, the idea of taking their chances with the bunk beds suddenly seemed like a more comfortable option.

Restored to full fitness by some luxurious showers, we entered into the now familiar Raid rituals: we reviewed the day's footage, found an acceptable cafe for a beer, raided the boulangerie for some quiches, and updated the blog, while Dad made use of the local bike shop to fix his gears. This took us neatly up to dinner time, where the multi-purpose Cafe Concorde allowed us to remain in our seats as mobile office became dining table and we hungrily tore into confit duck and steak, washed down with a demi of Pelforth.

A hilarious episode of 'describe the dessert to the stupid English people' unwittingly introduced us to the English speaking Belgian couple who had been dining next to us all evening. We soon established Carl & Christine were avid cyclists also on a bike-centric holiday in the region raising money with a big group for the charity Think Pink. Further bike discussion revealed they were pals with Eddie Merxx, very probably the most succesful professional cyclist of all time.

The Proberts sat back and lapped up stories of hanging out with this legend, and second hand stories that he'd told them. An increasingly desperate Mike had doused himself in petrol and was trying to use the (fortunately electronic) candle on the table to end his boredom. Eventually the bike-a-thon conversation was over for Mike as our two new pals kindly insisted on buying us a round of coffees. We bade our new friends goodnight as we all left into the night to go our separate ways. Back in the honeymoon suite there were contrasting scenes either side of the mandatory heterosexual central dividing cushion: Tom was floating on a cloud of disbelief at finally living the dream of meeting fellow cyclists in a mountain cafe, while Mike had already grumpily fallen asleep.