Port d'Aula, Port de Salau (Mountain bike)

Climbing out of the cloud

It's been quite a while since I was last on the mountain bike (years) but I've been harbouring a plan to cycle upto the Port d'Aula (2260m) traverse the spanish slopes to the Port de Salau (2087m) and descend to Salau and then Couflens.

Today was the day and together with Ian and Barry, an early start was made. The thought of 1700m of ascent was a bit too daunting so we drove to the Col de Pause (1527m) to kill some of the height gain. We were soon above the clouds but the early morning sun wasn't too hot, so the ascent was lovely.

The rocky track which leads to the Port d'Aula is at an unchanging gradient from start to finish and we reached it in a little over 2 hours.

The first section of switchbacks leading to the Cabane d'Areau

On the Spanish side things change dramatically - no paths, no waymarks, just steep slopes to traverse on narrow sheep tracks. perhaps 10% of the 5km could be ridden the rest was pushing, dragging or carrying the bike. Awkward, but not too demanding. Another 1hr 30mins saw us at the Port de Salau and the start of 1400m (4500ft) of descent.

The Port d'Salau

We managed to ride 90% of it. In fact the trickiest part was the path between 1450m and 1300m where many rocks made the going delicate - more so after one of my feet slipped off the pedals and the other shin received an almighty whack from it - drawing blood and I'll have quite a bruise!

Stopped in at Les Myrtilles when we arrived in Salau for a couple of beers before pressing on back to the car.I won the prize for the ascent, Ian for the descent and Barry got a special prize for sheer determination in the face of adversity. All in all a grand day out.