Col des Bordères from Argeles Gazost via Aucun

The climb for the first 5km out of Argeles-Gazost is tough - on the map it looks like the road follows the river but in reality the river is a deep gorge near A-G and you climb over a 100m above the gorge. You don't actually get to river level until near Aucun 10km in. Despite the Aubisque being closed the road was busy until then with not a lot of room to the right of the white lines for cyclists like on many other roads in the area. The climb up the Col des Borderes from Arrens-Marsous is nice and quiet with a decent road surface. Steep in places, but never for too long. It is a short climb - all that early climbing from Argeles-Gazost means A-M is at 875m so you have under 300m of climbing left. The climb is mainly through dense forest so views across the valley are rare. The descent to Estaing is quite steep and windy. We then went up to Lac d'Estaing. A generally easy 6km up to the Lac which is almost at the same height as the Col des Borderes. We then descended along the river coming from the Lac down the other side of the valley. If you like your descents fast without being too hair-raising this is for you. Good surfaces, never overly steep, fast bends and light traffic means you can rocket down relatively safely.

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