Glad we are not visiting this one in 2011, mont ventoux! jhttp://yfrog.com/khv1qzoj
Did I mention that Wade Wallace (of cyclingtipsblog.com) is on our tour and rooming with Alex ? Wade is a super strong rider and would you believe has been riding these mountains on standard chain rings and what looks like an 11/23 cassette and he even drags around a Canon 7D + 24-70 L lens on his back.
Here's Wade's tweet from last night. Will be interesting to debrief over dinner.
Mt Ventoux from a distance. Gonna have a good crack at it tomorrow from the Baudoin side http://img.ly/6kSb. My rest day is today!
Well, how did I find the ride ? Absolutely marvellous. Whilst the gradients were much heavier than Tourmalet (Ventoux has lots of 11 to 15% gradients the way we rode it from Bedoin through to Mt Ventoux and down to Malaucene), Tourmalet seems unrelenting with little respite from the constant grind upwards.
Ventoux is also famous for it's Mistral galeforce winds which blow at more than 90 kmh for 220 days per year. We had gusts of about 60 kmh at the top which was still manageable but cold.
Here's Wade's post of our ride yesterday. We descended Ventoux together and he rode back to the Hotel (by the scenic Garmin route !! ha ha) with another one of our riders Trevor. In one of his pics of descending Ventoux you can see three small figures in the distance descending. Just look for the bright red jacket and that's me along with Alex and Yvette. I'll let his pics tell the story of what the climb looks like.
http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/2011/07/rest-day-up-mont-ventoux/
I bought that crazy red jacket six kilometres from the top of the mountain. Mmmm warm !! We even bumped into Will at the "Chateaux" six kms from the top who we see regularly at Cheeky Monkey. Small world, very small world.
Here's some Garmin details of our climb:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/100088217
Here's Wade's post of our ride yesterday. We descended Ventoux together and he rode back to the Hotel (by the scenic Garmin route !! ha ha) with another one of our riders Trevor. In one of his pics of descending Ventoux you can see three small figures in the distance descending. Just look for the bright red jacket and that's me along with Alex and Yvette. I'll let his pics tell the story of what the climb looks like.
http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/2011/07/rest-day-up-mont-ventoux/
I bought that crazy red jacket six kilometres from the top of the mountain. Mmmm warm !! We even bumped into Will at the "Chateaux" six kms from the top who we see regularly at Cheeky Monkey. Small world, very small world.
Here's some Garmin details of our climb:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/100088217
Yet another Garmin Elevation graph showing we climbed 1600 m in one hit which I think took me 1 hour 55 mins.
The descent was steep and of course goes on for ever. Something like 30 kms downhill. Unfortuantely, one of our riders, Nigel had a front tyre blowout near the top and fell. Broken collarbone which has to be plated tomorrow. They released him from hospital and he was at dinner last night only to return tomorrow for the op. Talk about unlucky.
Whilst on the topic of dinner, here's some foodie pics just for Simon. Sorry but I missed a pic of the entree as I was too ravenous by that stage to think of capturing it.
Off to the Alps this morning !!
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