There’s no mystery to this spot; it’s as steep as it looks. Maybe steeper. Col d’Andorre it’s called.
Ouch. It was going to be an “easy” day between two pretty tough ones, a loop from Lourdes up the valley to Argeles Gazost, with a little kicker up D102 for fun. Looked like about 800 feet of climbing on that loop. Which would have been fine, except, at the top, there’s a tiny little orange sign next to a water faucet (and it’s 94 degrees so you’ve definitely stopped for the water!). Col d’Andorre, 6km. Hmm. How bad can it be?
Gravel… again!We went just far enough to ensure that it was, in fact, gravel forever.
Pretty darned bad, and without even the satisfaction of completing it, thanks to it turning to gravel after about 4km or so. Steep? Yes, it’s Sonora Pass steep. Great views, little traffic, but wow. Did get us KOMs for that piece though, primarily because only one other Strava person has ever dared to try it before.
It was a Tuesday/Thursday ride indistinguishable from most, for the most part. Large group, with Kevin, Kevin, Keith, Zack, Karen, Jan, John, George, Todd, and even a guest appearance by Patrick, our Redwood City service manager, who joined us mid-way. Missing were Karl (is he playing Chess again?), Eric, and Marcus (presently riding in Ireland, according to his Strava reports).
We started out pretty easy on Kings but things got serious before the first hairpin (the one over the creek, about 5-6 minutes into the climb), and that was pretty much the last I saw of most everyone. I could have kept up longer were it not for my determination to ride the entire way up the climb remaining in the saddle, which has not been my “style” of climbing for quite some time. Very hard on the hamstrings, but figured that which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, plus if I can do more climbing in the saddle instead of standing up, I can get better ride videos (there’s a lot of rocking from side to side when I stand).
Kevin (not the pilot) got to the top in the elite group of Zack, Keith & George, and had a new best time of 24:50. Me? Almost 4 minutes later. So much later that Keith came back down the hill looking for me. I remember, way way way back in the day, when it used to be me doing that, keeping track of everyone on the ride by frequently turning around and riding back down the hill a bit before heading back up.
Passing through Sky Londa we noticed road work on 84 east (the descent into Woodside), so we made the unusual decision to ride down the east side of Old LaHonda. Thankfully not a single car was heading up the road, just a pair of bikes, so it was almost but not quite fun heading down (not quite fun because you never knew what to expect around each corner; if you knew it was clear, you could really have some fun on that descent!). You can see what it’s like below-
Rest assured no Strava KOMs were in jeopardy on the descent this morning!
