2020 Tour de France Cycling Trip

Your support crew will meet you at Barcelona El Prat airport at 11am for a short transfer to Girona. We’ll assist you to assemble your bike, or attach pedals to your hire bike and test our equipment on our warm up ride around Girona, on the roads so many professionals train on. Tonight we have a welcome dinner, for you to meet others and ask your staff any questions.

Many professional athletes have set themselves up in Girona, it’s no surprise that some have established their own coffee shop too. Today, we’ll see what all the fuss is about in the ancient city – these streets were used for scenes in Game of Thrones. Our ride connects common training rides of locals, including Els Angels. Explore this beautiful villages this afternoon and see the first mountain stage of the Tour de France in a local bar. Your free tonight to dine at one of the many fine quality restaurants or try a tapas bar.

Our big ride from Girona takes us down onto the Costa Brava coastline. Undulating, twisty roads and very smooth surfaces that pass beaches, villas, private coves and tapas bars overlooking the Mediterranean – a popular holiday spot. Best way to explore Costa Brava is riding your bike. Put your swimmers in the van and take a dip in the Med. We’ll stop for lunch before returning to Girona.

Today we depart Girona and start our traverse of the Pyrenees. We’ll avoid the busy roads and drive you away from Girona and ride along much quieter ones to arrive at our hotel this afternoon. Our next two hotels are known as Paradors and are luxury hotels converted from palaces and castles – a government initiative that helps preserve historic buildings. Some climbing in today’s route, but nothing too serious. We’ll enjoy dinner together at our parador.

Over recent years, one of the most memorable solo stage victories was a finish in Andorra in torrential rain, by Tom Dumoulin – stage 9, 2016. He went on to win the Giro the following year. Ride much of that stage between our hotels and conquer two great climbs along the way. The rugged beauty of the part of the Pyrenees is mesmerising, over 100km and 2,000m of vertical ascent for the day. Skip one of the climbs for something shorter.

We’re surrounded by the mountains and awaiting the arrival of Le Tour to the Pyrenees. We’ll set off and get a good warm up before climbing the modern classic - Port de Balès. Since its introduction in 2007 it has featured more or less every 2nd or 3rd year since and one of our favourite climbs in the Pyrenees. Climb Balès this morning ahead of the race and watch the race on the final climb, Col du Peyresourde, returning to our hotel after the race finish. Will a daring descent establish victory today?

We’ll ride another classical climb of Tour de France today and descend to the stage 9 finish. Our climb ticks off two summits from our bucket list – Col du Soulor and Col d’Aubisque. After seeing the finish, we’ll travel back to our hotel, for a final ride on the legendary Tour de France climb – Col du Tourmalet.

It is a perfect 100km loop, also another of our favourite rides. There are two possible ascents of Tourmalet, we’ll follow the direction of the last time Tour de France climbed this legend – the tougher western side. We have a gradual ride up the gorge to warm up before the 19km ascent starts, it’s a steady climb with an average of 7.4%. Find an easy gear and keep pedalling. Stop at the nice cafe at the top and take a photograph at the summit under the monument, before continuing over the otherside. A grand ride to finish our trip before our farewell dinner tonight.

Sadly today, our trip crossing the Pyrenees has come to an end. From the smooth roads of Girona, where professionals train to the legendary climbs of the Pyrenees, we have had laughs together, some challenging times on the bike and seen Le Tour de France mountain stages. We wish you a safe journey home, or a great stay on in Europe and hope to see you again one day – soon. We’ll arrive at Toulouse Blagnac airport at about 12pm.