I’m just back from two weeks of riding-but-mostly-drinking in Japan and while I was away Haute Route posted our Pyrenees route and elevation profiles for next year. I was planning on giving my opinion on all this when I got back, but Jim Cotton has beat me to it (our opinions align, luckily for me). Here is what a guy with plenty of HR experience has to say on the matter.
First Things First: Why the Pyrénées?
The Haute Route Pyrénées doesn’t have the ‘big name’ feel of the Haute Route Alps; that allure of Alpe D’Huez, the Glandon, Madeleine and the handful of bucket list climbs. However, that by no means makes the Pyrenees a lesser event.
Choose the Pyrénées and you get a very different week. The peloton is a touch smaller, and life feels a little more relaxed – the event village is a little less hectic, and somehow, the atmosphere feels more convivial.
Perhaps this vibe is in part due to the nature area itself.Rather than staying in big ski stations such as Serre Chevalier and Courchevel (a couple of the Alps’ host towns for 2019), which can feel a little devoid and inhumane in the off-season of late summer, in the Pyrénées, you stay in homely and ‘real’ mountain towns, namely Pau, Bagnères-de-Luchon, and Argelès-Gazost. The…
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The Vicious Cycle 
Thanks for sharing this G!
Thanks for writing it, J!