Looking at a route option for later this year and it seems a good opportunity to have a crack at the Raid Pyrenean while in that area. Anyone with experience of the Pyrenees ridden it? Wondering if it's a 'tick' of a route / load of cols rather than a truly great ride - or it may be both.

Quite inspired by the sights of the Tourmalet in the TdF this year and haven't ridden there much before - a couple of friends did the RP years back and the pics looked great.

Cheers

I've had a look at the route for our summer tour, but going from Coast to Coast seemed like a logistical nightmare.

Have been thinking about potentially flying out to Pau and making a circular tour from there.

If you do go, it would be interesting to hear how you get on

If it happens I'll let you know. It's an alternative to the MV Spain route based on time, and as you say, return logistics. Ferry from Hendaye area or a ride on EV1 maybe.

I keep looking at this route James and think i’m going to have to do it. I’m thinking ferry to Bilbao then flight home from Perpingnon (sic on phone). I’m looking at next Sept so very keen to see how you get on.

I rode the Raid around 10 years so memory is a little hazy, flew into Biarritz and out of Carcasonne as I stayed with some friends of the family on the way back.

Its a good ride obviously very road based, although the Pyrennees are a good bit quieter than the Alps, most of the riders you will encounter are around the Aubisque and Soleur.

Well worth taking a good look at the route profile as there are some fairly long stretches between some of the cols, busiest bit I remember was around Aix le Thermes with traffic heading to Andorra.

Some great cols to tick

Keep fancying another Raid at some point, maybe Corsica or Sardinia next.

Thanks Mike, sorry also, late reply here.

I took a different route in the end, a last minute change of plan. By the time I'd ridden the TNR then across to the Verdon I'd decided I wanted a more open route home and knew the 100hrs Raid thing would be likely to get me into audax-rando mode when I fancied more open schedule riding. Instead, I took a route I'd planned last year but didn't use, a return route from just N of Nice. Last year I rode from Calais to just N of Nice in June via the Morvan, Jura and Ecrin area Alps. I planned to return via the Vercors and Chartreuse after that but went off exploring in the Luberon-Ventoux area instead (a sucker for warm bivis among pine trees!) then got the Bike Express coach 4 days later.

The Vercors and Chartreuse areas were incredible, just what I was after this year. Pyrenees maybe next year. Still not got to the MV route in Spain either.. damn this work-limited 4 week holiday thing, not enough time

Hey James

No worries at all - the Raid isn't going anywhere especially with a measly 4 weeks worth of holiday ;-)

I'd love to see the previous years route you mentioned, I'm half considering riding down to Sardinia ahead of a holiday with the rest of the family next summer.

Cheers

Mike

Could be of interest? I did an off road Trans Pyrenees a few years ago, there's a train link across the French side via Toulouse and Perpignan , takes about 7 hours.
https://www.transiberica.cc/transpyrenees/

Yes, thanks - could be worth comparing that with the Raid route.

Me and 10 others are riding the Pyrenean route in last week of Aug 2020 (Roadie holiday), I've not actually planned any of this myself i'd be happy to pass on some info regarding the logistics of what we are doing in terms of getting this done, firstly we have 2/3 people travelling over in a hired van with all the bikes in whilst the others fly to the start point Hendaye i think, luckily for us we have a lad who will be mtb'ing in the day as well as driving the van from one point to the next over 6 days then we all fly home and the 2/3 people who drove over will be driving back over to the UK, we all rode the Route Des Grande Alps last summer with the same concept, main driver had his digs paid for by everyone else basically.
Think it worked out about a grand each for all accomodation, fuel, flights, ferry crossing, van hire etc, needs someone very patient and precise to work all this out hence I dont organise anything and the main thing is getting someone willing to do the driving it worked in the Alps no reason why it wont in the Pyrenees.