Col du Mt Ventoux (2x1912m), one climb from Bedoin, the other from Malaucene 114KM
Route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5575258
Difficulty: Hard, the Mt Ventoux is a Hors Categorie climb, the first climb felt good, but on the
second, the southern french sun made its appearence and things became a lot harder
Day 02:
Right, we are off at 7AM from a town to Carpentras to attack the big beast of Provence.
15km on the flats to warm the legs up and we arrive in Bedoin for a pre climb breakfast.
I can't apologize enough to the lady serving us: I released a nervous silent and deadly fart
which gave us a good excuse to get cracking.
Ben and I set off, the temperature is perfect and there is no wind. We climb gradually taking it
very easy. We heard so many stories about this climb that for once, we were very cautious and
expected the worse around every corner. We overtook quite a few people on the way up, which
in all honesty does boost your moral up in quite a pathetic way (it's not a race, but if it was I would be alright..haha).
Ben completed the climb in 2hours 10 and myself a good 10 minutes after. It was a good and comfortable climb, so we decided to do the decent and start again, this time from Malaucene.
After some food and the purchase of a new back wheel, we set off again this time at 11:00AM.
However this time round, conditions had changed. The southern sun was nicely spreading its heat, and
the legs quickly reminded us of the first morning's climb. It became difficult.
But we made it up there (we do not have a timing) and it felt fantastic.
We would have wanted to do the third climb, but unfortunately, ran out of time as we needed to be
somewhere before a closure. This is the first but not the last time we do the Ventoux, next time,
we might try it.
30 minutes of downhill into Bedoin, followed by a massive pizza for evening meal.
This is a must do climb but without a minimum of training it would not be much fun.
Next stop, Bezier.
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