[MTB Movie] NIMP - My most extreme solo ride 

Here is the most beautiful full solo of my life, such an improbable ride!...
This Sunday, I got up super unmotivated... As for 2 months, the weather was not good. I was out of shape. And the place I had chosen to ride is an abominable one where I had sworn to myself never to put a wheel again! And I was going alone. But hey, I just thought I needed practice, so go!
This place in Ariège, at the bottom of the Soulcem valley, is the worst that exists in the Pyrenees (for cycling, of course). It's very beautiful, wild, but atrocious! There are only unrideable fields: huge scree, ultra-steep slopes, cliffs everywhere... This summit, the Bareytes peak, I had tried it 6 years ago, and I had given up halfway: impossible! I don't know why, I decided to come back...
In addition, you add that the access is very long! There is an endless track forbidden to cars that goes up an endless valley. Suddenly, start with 500 m of D+ of pedaling which, some know it well, is really not my thing. And I had to carry a lot of weight because I was alone and I had taken all the equipment to film + the complete mountain equipment. However, pedaling with a trekking backpack is not fun... I still pedaled the 500 m without a break.
I can say it now: I didn't even know what summit I was going to climb. I had several options, I said to myself: "we'll see on the spot, I'll take the least bad". And to tell the truth about this truth: I never thought I had a chance of reaching the top.
Finally, I resume more or less the the beginning of same route as 6 years ago.... I pass the place where I had turned around years before and I attack the seriousness. The valley that I have to go up is chaotic: only cliffs everywhere, with terraces, impassable scree... I still manage to find the route. In this area, there is supposed to be a path. But as often in Ariège, this path is almost non-existent and the cairns are very hard to follow.
At the same time, the atmosphere was beginning to be intimidating: I was really far from everything, no network since 2 hours, clouds covering the summits… And this terrain could not be more accident-prone… In short, I had all the bad ingredients. But I don't know why, I was zen, I moved forward quietly, while telling myself that I had no chance of success.
The ground, however, was getting worse and worse. I tell myself a lot of times that I will have to give up... But in fact, no, I see that everything can potentially go downhill. Finally pass… Yes, pass, with maximum concentration and in great shape. Frankly, at this point, I hesitated ten times to give up! But I continue. A little stupidly? Everyone will judge.
The summit remains in the mist in front of me, impossible to know where to attack it. All I see are the beginnings of almost vertical cliffs. On the right, I think I can guess a couloir that goes straight up the face, but it's impossible to say, everything is in the clouds. It’s way too uncertain, and it feels way too steep. So I decide to push on to the Arinsal pass. Just to have the view on the Spanish side. But at the foot of the pass, I notice a very steep scarf that rises diagonally vaguely towards what could be the summit. I say to myself: "mmmh, if it is, it joins the couloir that I thought I guessed..." Suddenly, I abandon the pass and I go on this suspended slope where nothing holds. I had to climb as if I had crampons on a snow slope (but with the bike on my back…). And when I arrive at the top of theis section, the slope is revealed in front of me... My god!! The couloir was right there, 150 m. Through the ribbons of mist, I guess it is continuous. That's wonderful. And impressive… The slope wedged between cliffs which gets steeper and steeper and of which you can't see the end… The same type of feeling of gas as in extreme skiing. It was at the limit of what could be done on a bike... But all of a sudden, an adrenaline rush and I said to myself "great!"
I continue to the top. The end is hellish. I was more than 1300 m from D+, at maximum load, and on atrocious crumbling scree terrain which counts double... And I only did 3 breaks so far! But I don't know why, I felt good. It was MY mountain, for me alone. She accepted me, I felt it. I climbed it by intuition, on a side that I didn't know in the mist and the bars, and it's OK! In addition, the descent seems legendary!