Pau - The Circuit

I've done two laps so far ... The first one on foot with Iain and Mike, and then the second one on Iain's mountain bike. The first thing I've realised is that the YouTube clips I'd seen don't give an accurate impression of the ascent and descent. The start line is down in the valley, opposite the railway station, after the first right-hander the circuit goes uphill in quite a big way, initially straight up a tree-lined boulevard, before a hairpin left under a bridge and then a very tight hairpin right which marks the top of the hill. Speed up into a long sweeping left past the casino, before an even longer right round the park.

Of course on street circuits you are close to the barriers so these long corners are blind as you are unsighted ahead, but they are normal road, with typical camber, so if you stay out wide for better visibility ahead then you end up on less helpful (or worse!) camber...

We then start dropping downhill through a nasty looking section across what is normally a roundabout, then down to a hairpin right, which at the gentle pace i tookmit on the mountain bike seemed fast enough. Then sweeping left, still downhill into a tricky looking chicane, then it opens out for a fast-as-you-like run to the finish line, followed shortly thereafter by a right 'kink' which everyone has told me to look out for ... A little wide here and you'll be thrown off by the camber...

Inevitably, as a Pau debutante, I've had a lot of advice from a lot of experienced people, all of it very good, but they rarely seem to mention the same sections, leaving me with the feeling that it's all hair-raising!

The good news is that at the moment there's a reasonable chance of the weekend staying dry all the way through - that would be great, so fingers crossed!