(Otherwise known as the Mont Ventoux stage of the Tour de France)
(I later learned there's actually a group called
"The Brotherhood of the Nuts of Ventoux", a collection of people who
have managed to climb Ventoux from all three sides in one day. As you
read on, you'll discover just what an accomplishment that would truly
be!).
Looks
easy enough on the map...a nice meandering ride through the
countryside of France. What's not shown here are two things-
#1: The profile of the stage, which shows three distinct Cols (that's French for
mountain or mountaintop), as well as several smaller ones that
apparently don't deserve names but nevertheless get to you after
awhile.
#2: This stage of the 'Tour, which is just under 100
miles in length, is one of those nasty courses where the total is
far more than the sum of its part. If you read what the
riders say about Mont Ventoux, it's pretty scary...and now I know
why!
Over 7000 people ride in this event...more
cyclists in one place than you can possibly imagine! We're
split up into groups of 1000 apiece, and assigned to holding pens
on blocked off streets in Carpentras.
In France, no tree is safe. Nor sides of
buildings, nor just about anything else. There were sections
of road where they might have been 50 cyclists heeding nature's
call at the same time.
7:42am We're off! What's it like? Think of
the "Running of the Bulls" in Spain and you get the
idea.
Shortly after the start you come across this
ancient (by my standards!) Roman aqueduct. This isn't
California!
8:06am Heading out of Carpentras and into
the country.
8:31am We invade one small town...
8:41am ...after another...
8:47am ...after another! They don't
bypass anything!
8:58 & 9:05am The early climbs begin very gently, peacefully winding their way through
fields, orchards and forrests.
9:20am Approaching the first
food stop, at Col de Murs (43km into the ride). If you
thought you could blow through a food stop or two, forget
it...literally thousands of cyclists create a traffic jam that
takes a good 10 minutes to get through! Riders going for the
fastest-possible times have to register very early and get into
one of the first couple groups off or they'll get held up
repeatedly.
9:39am
9:58am
10:09am
10:17am
10:28am Did we mention this ride features a
lot of climbing? But how can you tire of views like this?
10:51am That purple stuff on the left is
Lavender, something the Provence region of France is known
for.
10:56am Run for your lives, the cyclists
are heading this way!
11:06am Scenery like this isn't found in
the US!
11:10am
11:13am 91km into the ride and we're still
totally stacked up at the food stops!
11:24am Time to ride a paved cowpath!
One wonders how the Tour de France navigates something this
narrow.
11:27am You don't realize it yet, but
there's a road way up ahead on the far left, going way up, and
that's your destiny.
11:34am This is the last time many of us
felt like we had full use of our legs! From here on, it's a
grind to say the least.
11:44am This is a cruel, wide, unrelenting
little climb.
12:01pm
12:21pm
12:33pm
12:45pm
1:05pm Even this food station, at 132km in
Bedoin, is packed with cyclists!
1:47pm That's Mont Ventoux under the arrow,
beginning to look kinda nasty & cold.
2:52pm, 13km to go, and those cyclists you see
walking? You're going to see a lot of them!
3:10pm. Those footsteps of the people
walking behind you...they either don't recede at all, or do so
very slowly. It's eerie beyond belief, but so is this hill!
3:30pm The signs each kilometer
are passing by very slowly, and I found it necessary to stop three
times on this infernal hill because my legs were cramping up
nastily. This is unfathomable to a climber like
myself...it's just plain wrong! But you also build an
enormous amount of respect for those cyclists that might not be
the fastest in the world, but can just sit there in a low gear and
spin up anything, even if it takes a day or two to do it.
Sometimes, it's not about speed, it's about getting there,
period. This is one of those times.
3:49pm Unfortunately, at the
final water station (at Le Chalet Reyard), just 4km from the top,
they aren't allowing anyone through. By this point we're
seeing an endless procession of ambulances and busses go in either
direction, taking care of cyclists who got through a bit earlier
and were unprepared for horrendous winds, snow and icy rain on the
far side. It had become a nightmarish scene for all, and
yet, at this point, I only knew one thing...the summit was within
reach (finally!) and somebody wasn't going to let me get there.
If I had arrived just a couple minutes earlier,
I would have been allowed through. Whether it would have
been a blessing or a curse is hard to say, although I was far
better prepared than most, with leg warmers, a wind jacket and
waterproof coverings for my gloves. In fact, on the descent
back down, I was probably riding 15-20 mph faster than just about
anyone else, because I wasn't freezing to death.
Remember that saying I brought up in the Sonora
Pass 2000 page? Sometimes you get the Bear, and sometimes
the Bear gets you?
Score it Bears 2, Mike 0 for Y2K.
I've got unfinished business on Mont Ventoux,
and will be going back to complete this nasty little climb
sometime in the future!
If you're interested in past L'Etape Du Tour
rides, or want to keep an eye out for info on the 2001 event when
it becomes available for sign up, check out their website at http://www.LEtapeDuTour.com.
Every year they feature an event over one of the mountain stages
from that year's Tour de France, typically running it one to two
days ahead of the real thing. --Mike--
An email from
someone I met while on the ride-
Mike,
grinding up the Cote de Javon we chatted a good while. Do
you remember me? Lanky
Englishman on
a blue Condor bike, with Spinergy SPOX wheels? You gave me the www.chainreaction.com URL: "easy to
remember" I said, and it was. I checked it out
today: cool web site, nice story: where's the pictures of me?
(Joke). I'm sorry you just missed the
cut-off: it really was atrocious. In the end I clocked 7
hours 18 minutes for a silver medal in age group C. My overall
"scratch" position was
3020, my position in age group C was 1077.
The reason they closed the last few kilometres from Chalet
Reynard to the summit
was, as you may
know, because a man died on the climb. His heart failed under the double effect of exposure and exertion. In the
end, less half the 9000 riders finished. One
of my buddies finished in such a poor state that he was hospitalised.
The next day we went by car to get his bike from the observatory,
but the road was still closed. In fact, his
bike is still in France today!
At the top I was the coldest I have ever been in my life. I
wish I'd had, (like
you), a proper
waterproof top and glove coverings. Until the Mont Ventoux I was climbing with relative ease, legs spinning free.
This was in total contrast to the Forest of
Bedoin, where I was wishing for an extra sprocket. My 38-25 just was not enough - next year we are doing the "Gran
Fondo Campagnolo" and I'll install a
13-27 cassette. I really could have done with those extra two
teeth on the Ventoux. Next time I will bring
a little knapsack with a proper rain cape, a sweatshirt,
arm warmers, leg warmers and neoprene gloves. With hindsight, I'd much rather carry 500 grams of gear and not need
it, than leave it behind and freeze
so much.
It was good to chat. Keep on riding.
Rory
Aitken
And an email from
someone else who did the ride and found our website-
Mike,
I found your site and breathed a sigh of relief... now I can
make up for the
fact that I forgot my
camera that day! In any case, it was good to see some pictures
from inside the peleton to remember that day by. I'm sorry that
you got there before the cut-off -- if it is
any consolation, the entire re-constituted
Team Z (Lemond's 1990 team) that were re-united for the ride failed to make it past the cut-off. Ronan Pensec,
one of his key climbers (à la Tyler
Hamilton) even exploded his rear wheel on the climb of the Col des
Abeilles. Lemond even said he was glad to
have been turned back!
In any case, you only missed more of the same pain and
suffering that you
experienced from
the St. Estephe turn to the Chalet Reynard -- oh, with the addition
of peals of thunder, gusting headwinds (I saw one guy knocked down by the wind), painful pricks of needle-small hail
and, to top it all off, an arrival amidst
fog intermittant snow. Great fun!! I didn't stay long up top and managed to get down by forcing my cold-locked
jaws open to hum Bethoven's "Ode to
Joy" (Joy!? more like "Ode to having been to hell and
not quite back!") and tensing every
available tired muscle fiber to resist the cold
wind and wet. By intermittantly braking the front then rear
wheels, I was able to force a minuscule
amount of heat into my frozen hands so as to keep
their grip on the bars. I saw one fellow who locked up his rear
wheel for what seemed like 20-30 metres. He
managed not to fall and when I asked him as
I went by if things were ok, he answered fine, he finally managed
to force his frozen hand off the break
lever!! Yikes! My wife had come up earlier
in the morning to the Mont Serein Ski Station about halfway up on the North side and I was so relieved to be able to
duck into the car to warm up for 30
minutes... I could hardly talk when I got off the bike. In the end
over 700 riders were treated for varying
stages of hypothermia.
Malaucene was a crazy scene what with so many riders being
forced back down
to Bedoin... how did
you manage? Still, having ridden the Ventoux
in the heat, I have to say that I much prefer
the cold!
Philippe Crist
And from a rider in
England-
Sorry to see you didn't make it. I was one of the last ones up to
the top - legs gave out after the hailstorm
but kept on plugging away. Had to get off and
walk for about 0.5k around the 2-3km to go mark - just to get the legs "working
differently".At the top I availed myself of three windstopper
gilets - one for the chest and one for each
knee\calf. Plastic bags around my mitts (with holes poked through
for my braking fingers) and in my shoes. But I love dodgy descents (it must be the mountain biker in me - I've been
told that I'm a bit of a scary descender -
is that good?) and kept up with and overtook an ambulance that
was zooming down to pick someone up who'd fallen (they didn't look
to good when I passed the accident).
It's terrible I'm proud of getting to the top of Ventoux but I
get more of a grin from my new-found
descending ability. Don't get much call to practise it
in the flattish part of the UK I'm in. Like
almost everyone I was spinning wonderfully at felt super-fresh
before I got to the Forest section. How
wrong could I have been? Ended up with an abysmal
time of 8:25 but I suppose I didn't do too badly in that a.
I finished b. I didn't get hypothermia and c. It was
my first mountain climb.
Anyway, can't see me in any of your photos :-( I'll just have
to wait for the official ones to comes
through.
Bravo at surviving your Sonora pass 2000 ride!
Paul Stratford
Thinking about doing the L' Etape duTour yourself?
There are a number of touring companies offering 2004 trips to the event,
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Looks
easy enough on the map...a nice meandering ride through the
countryside of France. What's not shown here are two things-
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