We said we would try and we succeeded. We have in electric bike which is surely the most historic port of the Tour de France, the Tourmalet.
Its height 2115 meters imposed, the truth, and if you come from a long period of relative inactivity, like me. For the record I am not a hunter ports. I uploaded many in my life, but I've never gone looking. They were simply in my path and I have gone to enjoy the climb and a long and fast descent. The highest I've been promoted to enter China. They had about 3500 meters high and was loaded with panniers, but at the expense of patience everything gets.
On August 21 we we drove to recognize, by the side of Luz Saint Sauveur. By bike it would climb from Bagneres de Bigorre.
The big question was not whether a server hold. What was at issue was the battery. Would it help the battery of an electric bike midrange to overcome more than 1,300 meters of altitude?
The next day at eight o'clock I was on the road. That day, my intention was to test the electric mountain bike a pre-series model that had lent me. He did not intend to get up, because I know I could give him the battery and because the place where I was staying, above Lesponne, added a few extra kilometers, a priori, made the trip too long.
But once you are, you are motivated and when does a few kilometers you left behind Sainte Marie de Campan and head to La Mongie, you think why not try. And when you approach it, you can not quit and you keep pedaling, overtaking cyclists and seeing superseded by other, wondering why the French raise llamas in the Pyrenees or lamenting the bad taste that had owners who urbanized the horrendous ski resort of La Mongie.
In short, 100 meters from the top, and after 19 kilometers uphill, the battery had enough. Nothing serious, one apretadita more, and we could crown the Tourmalet.
Of course, after a professional photographer immortalized company Phototourmalet.com us, to us and the hundreds of cyclists of all ages, sex and condition weekend of summer make the climb every day, for posterity.
The downside is that to get to our accommodation was five kilometers uphill, without battery, is made a little, a little long.
The following days were testing the Roma, a folding model eBikes Legend brand that extends the battery more than you could imagine. With it we went twice significantly lower than the Tourmalet Aspin Col (1490 meters), beautiful but high. Even my wife tried it, you will be just as, had no problem getting to the top.
And the last day of stay in the French Pyrenees climb the Tourmalet played with the little Rome. We can say that for Aspin had used the attendance level 2 in the sections more or less flat and 1 in the highest increases (level 2 pushes up to 15 mph and 1 to about 10).
As the Tourmalet has 625 meters more than the Aspin, save battery played that day to the fullest. So I pedaled all the time with the support 1, but still managed to reach up to 36.1 volt battery, enough for about 5 kilometers upstream. And once up still I had to wait more than five minutes my fellow sufferer (well, his fatigue was much greater than mine) arrived.
For lovers of statistics and according to Strava application, in the ascent of Tourmalet with Roma I spent 1 hour and 27 minutes from Sainte Marie de Campan, 36 minutes more than the professional cyclist Robert Gesink and 10 minutes longer than the time I was made a few days earlier with the electric mountain bike. Strava ranking, got the time 2194 a total of 8590 people who until then had climbed the Tourmalet using this application.
On the way down I caught tip speed of 68 per hour, which is not bad in the case of a folding. But I got a lot more discreet result: 598 of a total of 1912 records.
Tours of the French Pyrenees have allowed us to corroborate that riding an electric bike can go very far and overcome steep slopes while one performs moderate physical effort.
