THIS WAS THE DAY! The day we’d been looking forward to the entire trip, the penultimate stage of the Tour. Riding the (in)famous Mont Ventoux only hours before the pros. Everything was planned prior to leaving Australia - we were part of a small select group of riders who had exclusive passes to ride the whole race leg to the top of Mont Ventoux accompanied by a support vehicle. The ASO (TdF owners and governing body) had already shortened our 167km ride by the time we reached France - down to only 100km now - but even this distance with the mountain at the end was to be a huge challenge regardless.
We were up at 3:30am that morning to drive to the drop off point so we could start riding at the crack of dawn on our 100km leg, the last 22km being the humbling and unrelenting Mont Ventoux. Along the way it was careful pacing and plenty of fluid/nutrition intake. There was a bit of nervousness about what lay ahead and for periods there was complete silence. I reckon people were just thinking about the pain to come. We were well paced along the way by our very experienced ex pro rider guide. In the early part of the day notice came through that all was not good up at the summit. A beautiful sunny calm day in the lowlands but 100km/hr+ winds at the top. Great - as if it wasn’t hard enough to start with.
Mont Ventoux - 25km away
We went under the official 25km-to-go arch feeling pretty good. We started to wind our way through the crowds, and let me tell you they were everywhere. Spectators, cyclists, motorists, you name it - an estimated 500,000 lined the last 20 odd km’s. Now the biggest disappointment of all…with about 20km to go we come up to a police road block. The Gendarmerie (French cops) had decided that nobody was allowed to ride through. Our guide (who could speak French) did his best to convince the pistol packing uniforms that we had every right to continue. But even the flashing of our official passes could not change their minds - they were clearly quite agitated and getting crankier by the minute.
After much arguing it was time to cut our losses and turn back. No Mont Ventoux for us. Plan B. We set up camp at a local winery a few km’s down the road on the race route (Cave Terra Ventoux), but before we could settle in for some local wine and watching the race on the big screen we had to burn off some serious frustration and crank out a few more miles. We headed for the Gorges. This turned out to be a spectacular ride winding around a steep gorge with 20km’s of gentle ascent (2-3%) all the way. A brief stop at the top then it was a flat out time trial back down to the winery. It was a lot of high speed fun.
A quick photo at the summit of the Gorges before descending - that’s Mont Ventoux in the background with the barren sandy peak.
Brendan at summit of the Gorges
Daren at summit of the Gorges
The weather was fantastic for relaxing at our winery and taking in some high quality sport.
The winery
The peleton came through mid afternoon at a blistering pace. It’s a wonder more people don’t get seriously injured given the narrow roads packed with people and cyclists/support vehicles flying through at high speeds.
The peleton
An enjoyable day with some good cycling but very disappointing at having missed out on riding Mont Ventoux.
Km’s ridden: 120km (650km total)
Metres climbed: 700m (14,150m total)
Elevation: N/A