The Free Range Chalet

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Conquering our 1st Col

Well we’ve only gone and done it! we’d planned on tackling our first Col in August once our legs were up to it. But here we are on our 3rd bike ride of 2017 and we made it up a Col. It may not have been pretty, it might not be iconic to many and others just class it as a hill but its still a Col and we did it!

The lesser known Col des Ares

It’s ‘just’ a 8km climb with about 350m of ascent but it definitely makes a great start to our Col career.

To put it into some context Geoff has been cycling for just 9 months (he learnt to cycle when he was younger but until living in the mountains he had no interest in being on two wheels!) and has been going from strength to strength - next step clipless pedals - watch this space for updates on his adventures.

Vic’s winning at this point.

Me - I’ve done some touring and road cycling before, but I fell a little out of love with cycling when I lived on the infamous Col du Tourmalet - a 12% incline warm-up on my doorstep just didn’t inspire me. Building our business up over the last few years has meant that we haven’t had a lot of time for the fun things or exercise and subsequently our fitness levels have suffered a little and I’m certainly carrying a bit more timber than I should be, but we’ve started on our fitness campaign in the most incredible way and we’re a little chuffed!

Minor readjustment after about 3 thousand laps of the local supermarket car park.

*UPDATE* Geoff has survived his first go on clipless pedals - unscathed no less - her’s the photographic evidence of him cycling 10km  around our local supermarket on a bank holiday.

Check out our Road Cycling Holidays here