Yesterday, today and tomorrow!

Yesterday I cycled from Sort in Spain to Bagneres-de-Luchon, France.
I left at 845 and after 30 Km of a little uphill to get to the base of Port de la Bonaigua, I started to proper climb. 1400 m above Sort, La Bonaigua is a ski resort that sits at 2075m, but now the ski season's finished it's like a ghost town.
A few pictures here and there and down to Vielha, where La Gio had told me I had to stopped at the mexican restaurant and try the empanadillas which were very good apparently. And so I did. at 1245 I was at the bar where Ester from Madrid was in control. She made good company as i chucked in a few of the empanadas which as Gio said were very good indeed. But what she didn't say is how cool this bar tender was, which later found out she was not only the bar tender, but the cook as well. And a very good one as I can tell from this cheese flan she made me try and retry because they were delicious. So nice were they that I had to ask for the recipe, and so cool she was that she gave it to me happily. "Now you just have to make it, and enjoy it with friends" she said.
After a nice chat with a group of people who were admiring my case, proudly I set off towards Bossost but not quite, as just before this little village, there's a road that takes you to El Portillon which at 1300 meters approximately it was the second Col of the day and then down to Luchon where I spent the night.
Today took me from Bagneres Luchon to Campan through the Col de Peyresoude and Col d'Aspin. A couple of classic mountain passes from Le Tour de France and i can see why. Beautiful riding in a sunning landscape. 1569 m at Peyresoude and 1489 at Aspin for a good run of 65 km to arrive at Campan. The shortest ride of Le Tour (de Fonz i mean). And this only means one thing. That tomorrow is a big one, or was a big one but I'll explain that in a second.
Tomorrow the plan will see me passing the Col du Tourmalet at 2114 meters and then the Col d'Aubisque at around 1700 m above sea level. Together zith the Galibier in the Alps, these are the big three cols of the Tour de France.
In 1910 when the Tour fist came to the Pyrenees they cross from between Perpignan and Luchon (289 km with 4 major climbs) and, after a rest day, between Luchon and Bayonne (326 km long and 7 brutal climbs). While passing the race officials at the col du Tourmalet the stage and tour winner Octave Lapize called them "assasins, all of you". You can read more in this link http://www.letour.fr/2010/TDF/COURSE/us/les_pyrenees.html
So this year the Tour in celebrating 100 years of that and having a stage from Luchon to Pau, through the Peyresoude, Aspin, tourmalet and Aubisque. Almost 200 km with more than 4000 m climb. Or, what I'm doing today and tomorrow, in just one day.
Now! That's in July and it's only April now and while talking to another cyclist at the top of aspin this morning, i found out the Tourmalet and Aubisque are closed, snow! So I'm presented with 2 options here and one dilema. Either go safe and be "good" and take the road around to Laruns, a bit longer but no big mountains. Or I can still try to go over the cols. It's only 2120 m and yesterday I was at 2075 and temperature wasn't an issue at all. I just saw a webcam of the area and you can see spots with no snow. Tomorrow is warmer than yesterday and today, probably the warmest day of the year so far, so i think is really worth a try. Early start to try and reach the top, if not possible, come back down and go around to Laruns. Where there's another change of plans.
The original program was to go from Laruns to Biarritz, with the goal of scoring some surf on the rest day. Looking at the swell and wind forecast for next week, surf is not happening. I have a friend who is in Formigal, Spain, not very far from Laruns next to the Col de Portalet and offer to pick me up in Laruns, to have dinner back in Formigal as they're having the local fair and parties for the end of the winter season on Sunday! From there instead of Biarritz which I already know, I'll head to San Sebastian and spend a day there before start my way up to La rochelle and Paris.
Beautiful trip, loving it!!!!