Mont Ventoux

Ah, the Mont Ventoux, or: le Geant de la Provence, de Kale Berg. What more is there to say about it? Indeed, it rises 5200 ft straight out of the valley in 13 miles, it’s both a pro and amateur cyclist magnet, it has plenty of history (from Petrarca to Tom Simpson), the first part of the climb features the hot, humid, bug-infested forest and then follows the often cold, wind swept moonscape higher up…

I was staying nearby this big boy on a family vacation, so the temptation was obvious – a few weeks ago the riders in the Tour had battled it out here and the images of the brutal climb were still fresh in my mind. I wanted to do it together with my dad, but after some consideration it was clear this was a bit ambitious for his current level of training (and it’s not a good place to risk your health). So he decided to play support team car for me in the beginning and do the ride starting from Chalet Reynard on his mtb.

The first few miles are very pleasant, a nice road through vineyards with a mild grade. Then, after a tight corner, the road turns into the feared forest, and features a steep, relentless grade with long, demoralizingly straight stretches. It feels the climbing goes on forever but when the grade flattens a bit (meaning 6-7% instead of 9-10%), you know you’re getting close to the Chalet Reynard. This relative ‘plateau’ offers a nice breather to recover before the last couple grueling miles are served up. We were lucky in that it was a nice, clear day without much wind, so at the Chalet, which is located at the treeline, the weather conditions were near-perfect. And so the final push to the summit ensued, passing the Simpson memorial and with the last switchbacked corner dishing out the steepest grade of the day – I finished in just under 1 hour 40 minutes (starting from Bedoin).

One of the fun things (for those who prefer to do their suffering with others): you won’t be alone; I actually sometimes felt to be in an amateur event or race, so many cyclists are doing this any given day. There were even photographer dudes taking shots of you with their SLR’s that you can order online, and this on a random tuesday afternoon in mid-september.

After summitting I rode down a bit to hook up with my dad and joined him up again on those last couple miles of the climb. The descent into Bedoin was quite a blast and a nice reward.

Housekeeping Note: some of the photos below are not geotagged correctly, as I had switched off my GPS after summitting the first time and only turned it on again for the descent…