The Tourmalet

Today we rode the famous Col d'Tourmalet. It was actually much easier than we thought primarily because we left at 6am to beat the heat. Reached 93 C or so today.
(oops, thanks, though it felt like 93 C, it was actually only 93 F)

The route is shown (left) though it may have some problems with google maps.
The start of the ride was my favorite actually. We begin in a valley that becomes narrower and narrower as you go up in elevation, with a river just off to the side of the road. We often had sheer cliffs to our left and sheer drops to our right.

As we got higher up towards the peaks it opened up and there were large grasslands and cattle grazing.

In fact, just as Khalid was about to catch me on the climb the cattle (team Sigman) began walking across the road and blocked his path. Later on the descent he was also almost taken out by a sheep and a donkey.

Cows on their way to block Khalid

The peak