ASFPALT

very hard

ASPE VALLEY L

Distance: 102km   Unevenness: 2970m

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A "full time" Aspe Valley.
Circo de Lescun, Pyrenean Dolomites.

Tres fotos fijas

Moving from Arette to Aspe Valley is to see how the smoothed pastoral landscape of the “Pais Basque” fades, and how another similar one comes but in wild version. Here it "smells" already to Pyrenees Central.

Saying Aspe Valley is for us something similar to saying Shangri-La.
And despite the cross-border highway that runs through the valley and the recent works for the start-up of the old railway between Oloron and Bedous. At the end, our territories are the slopes. The Valley bottom on these routes is a mere formality to begin another ascent.

perfil

Itinerarie: Arette D341 - Lie - Lourdios - D441 - Bouezou - Lées Athas D237 - N134 - D239 - Lescun - Laberouat - Lescun - N134 - D238 - Escot D294 - Marie-Blanque - Escot D238 - N134 - D918 – Arette

Route on Wikiloc map

If you want to see the route on wikiloc website click on the green icon on the map.

Multimedia and/or description of the route

Paisaje estándar del Valle de Aspe en las cercanías de Lourdios

Col de Bouesou, pasamos de la vertiente de Arette-La pierre St Martin al Valle de Aspe

Descendiendo Bouesou hacia Lées-Athas, dejamos arriba la carretera que nos llevaría a Osse-en-Aspe.

Espectacular descenso hacia Lées-Athas

Circo de Lescun

El refugio de Laberouat, a 1422 metros de altitud espera.

El pueblo de Lescun se encuentra a mitad de puerto, perfecta excusa para hacer una parada "técnica".

A partir de Lescun pocas bromas, resaltes muy duros con descansos al principio...

...y traca final con un kilómetro entero al 14%

Si vas pedaleando, casi seguro que el paisaje lo veras al final.

Si fotografías esto, es que has llegado. Sus casi 1000 metros de desnivel y la pendiente media del 9% pueden engañar. Debido a sus repetidas rampas el puerto resulta mucho más exigente que otros con cifras superiores. Estamos 2 "puntos" por encima del mítico Marie Blanque.

Cuesta abajo todo es más fácil

Y ahora sí que se puede disfrutar del entorno.

Criteria of graduation of the routes

We are where we are, in the Atlantic Pyrenees, with a plain to the North with localities at very low altitude and ports that are close to the 2000m range.
The southern slope is more "human", towns are in a higher altitude and the slopes are not so important.
The vast majority of the routes cover the ports of the "greats": Issarbe, La Piedra de St Martin, Laberouat, Bagargi, Artaburu, Arnostegi, Ahuski, Larrau...with slopes ranging between 1000 and 1700 meters. Some routes ascent one of these ports, others 2 or 3 and even more.
We anticipated this so the criteria are clear for each 6 levels that we have chosen for the ranking of the routes.

  1. Walks or family routes: Routes with light slopes and little travel. Suitable for untrained family groups or for people who usually don't use the bike.
  2. Easy: Routes with a slope that can reach 1000 meters but facing none of the large ports.
    The distance will range between 40 and 60 kilometers.
  3. Moderate: Routes with one of the "great" ports or a combination of similar difficulty. The slopes can be really important and slopes can range between 1000 and 2000 meters.
    An example of "moderate" is the Artzaiak S stage through Bagargi. The port is tough, but it is the only major difficulty of the day, i.e. we have the whole day for this task, that’s why we left it in "moderate"..
    The distance will vary between 60 and 100 kilometers.
  4. Hard: Routes with a slope ranging around 2500 meters. There may have to ascend 2 ports of the "greats" or one and several of the "minor".
    The distance will vary between 90 and 130 kilometers. An example of how difficult it can be, will be the short route of the well-known Larra-Larrau.
  5. Very hard: Routes ranging from the 2500 and 4000 meters of altitude. Sometimes there may have to ascend the 3 ports of the '' greats ''. The distance will exceed the 100 kilometers and may reach the 200.
    The long route of Larra-Larrau is one of the exponents of how difficult this route is.
  6. Challenge: In these times there is a public that demands "more" yet. To them arises the concept of "challenge": stages of more than a day in "non-stop" mode, 4500-5000 or even more meters of altitude routes, individual or group time trial with 3000 meters of altitude and over 100 kilometers of route.
    Finally, a variety of what riders would usually call "nonsense" which to be more elegant, here we call it, 'Challenges'.
Tracks download

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Altimetrys of ports in other web sites
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foto de pie de pagina: bosque
pie de pagina: bosque