"Best Cycling in the French Pyrenees"

Unique & Custom Pyrenees Bicycle Tours!

Riding the Pyrénées: It's All About Pacing!

Whether you are coming to race up to the top of Tourmalet and Hautacam and compare your time to that of Lance Armstrong or to enjoy the long scenic mountain routes featured in my guide, knowing your cycling limits is essential. Many cyclists like to push as hard as they possibly can, but remember that if you over-do, you risk being unable to finish your ride, unable to ride in the following days or the possibility of injuring yourself more seriously.

There are various tools to help you gauge your fitness and ride within your limits. The most precise one is a very expensive piece of equipment called a power-meter that shows you your power output at every instant. Once you know your maximum and optimum power outputs, you can use them to ride at the speed you choose without the risk of having to end your ride prematurely due to exhaustion.

A heart-rate monitor is the next best thing. Although not quite as precise as a power-meter, they are much more affordable and highly recommended. Using a heart-rate monitor requires basic knowledge and some experimentation, but then you'll be able to define all your cardiac zones from your maximum heart rate and ride optimally within them. Just don't forget that a sudden very steep hill will sap a lot of your power before it is reflected in your heart rate.

I've also provided you with some helpful tools for important calculations. Even with a heart-rate monitor, it's always good to know how fast you can climb a given grade and for how long. You can use one of these tools to calculate your power and then determine your optimal or maximum speed for a given climb based on the grade and your total weight. Another will give you a time estimate using the average percentage and length of a climb. The last one will give you a personal time estimate for each guidebook route based on the time it takes you to complete your first ride. Enjoy!

Another useful tool will help you to instantly estimate the time you will need to complete every route based on your riding time for the first route you ride. Once you've finished your first route from "Best Cycling Routes of the Pyrenees", download this tool insert the reference time for your ride as well as your riding time for the same ride. You will instantly see the estimated times to complete all the other routes in this guidebook.