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Le Mont Ventoux

Club member Ian Collins recently moved to Geneva. Since then, he's ridden some of the sport's greatest routes. In the first of a series of features, Ian tells of his ride up Mont Ventoux, the giant of Provence.

I arrived in Switzerland in the middle of August but because our new house was still not vacant, we took the chance to have a couple of weeks’ holiday in the Var region of France, about 40 minutes directly north of St Tropez. We were staying about 30km from the Gorges du Verdon, an outstandingly beautiful area full of fantastic cycling country so I’d made sure our removal men had not packed my best bike and took it with me in a soft bike bag. Unfortunately I managed to forget my pedal spanner so my first job was trying to borrow something suitable from a local café owner. I didn’t know the word for “spanner” nor the verb “to tighten” but after a bit of pointing at my pedals he quickly cottoned on and produced a wrench that just about did the job. The whole café was interested in my bike and where I was going and I left to a chorus of good wishes and “courage monsieur” – it’s so nice to be in a country where cycling is appreciated, though after 4 hours of climbing I realised why I had been wished good luck.

Rising to 1909m, Mont Ventoux dominates the local landscape. Photo: Grenoble Cycling

But the highlight of the two weeks for me was making a detour on the way back to Geneva via Mont Ventoux. I started off from Bedoin in brilliant sunshine and made my way towards the Giant of Provence with some trepidation. It was my first experience of an hors categorie climb and although I’d had two weeks of good training in my legs, I was wondering how I would do. It’s about 21kms from Bedoin to the top but I had been told the first 5 or so were relatively easy. That’s true enough but after a relatively gentle start I was soon confronted with a pretty vicious slope. On account of being a bit of a girl, I was quickly onto my 27 sprocket and hoping for a hairpin to give me a bit of a break. Unfortunately, Ventoux doesn’t really have hairpins and although the gradient through the lower forested parts is “only” around 9-10% (and after all White Down is over 15%), it’s unremitting and long.

My heart rate monitor showed me I was really pushing myself and the heat meant that the sweat was pouring off my face and collecting in the lenses of my shades. It soon became clear why the pros can often be seen with their glasses placed on top of their heads on tough climbs, despite the sunshine. The first two thirds of the climb runs through thick forest and the gradient is at its steepest. Only two months or so previously, the Dauphine Libéré race had staged a time trial up Ventoux and I could still see the riders’ names painted all over the road. But any pretence I may have had of emulating my heroes was abruptly ended when I realised that Iban Mayo (the winner of the TT in a record time) would have already finished as I struggled past the half way mark. With about a third of the climb to go, the forest ends, the gradient slackens a bit and the famous Ventoux “moonscape” appears. I got a bizarre lift from this as I got a real sense of all the giants of the road having gone before me. My legs were tired and my cadence was horribly slow, even in a 27, but I had that “nice” pain you get when you think you are achieving something. Nevertheless, I was slightly dismayed that while I was in a very low gear, I was a long way from “spinning” up the hill like Lance (who would probably have been in a 21 sprocket anyway!!) – I suspect low cadence, low gear is a coach’s absolute no-no but by this stage I was just interested in getting up.

Ian and the moonscape

During the whole ride I was pleased that only one other rider had overtaken me and I spent the entire ascent picking off people on mountain bikes. Unfortunately I only passed two other bikes with dropped handlebars but you have to take the glory where you can find it at my standard. By the time I hit the moonscape, I started to think of Tom Simpson who had died on the Ventoux during the 67 Tour. I planned to stop off at his monument on the way back down but was eagerly looking for it as I climbed. Strangely I completely missed it on the way up – a function of the effort I was putting in I think. But soon enough the Observatory on the top loomed into view and I realised I only had a few kilometres to go. This gave me renewed energy and I soon found myself at the summit along with countless other riders who had arrived before me.

The view from the top. Photo: Grenoble Cycling

The sun was bright but it was quite chilly in the breeze and it felt quite strange to be on the only sizeable mountain in the area looking out over Provence. It’s probably a clichéd climb but one I would recommend nonetheless – a real challenge and a part of cycling lore.

For more information on riding Mont Ventoux, including the Club des Cinglés du Mont Ventoux challenge, click here.