Mont Ventoux Day!

What an awesome day - and we're only part way through!

After my fabulous night's sleep and a yummy breakfast, I headed back down the hill into Bedoin. It was heaving with people, bikes, cars. It was market day. Quite a buzz and atmosphere! I bought a few food bits for the climb and then set off.

The first section was very enjoyable, past countless vineyards again and on an easy gradient. You could see Mont Ventoux from the start. It didn't actually look very far away, just up the hill in fact. But it was 22km away.

When we hit the forest, the gradient became much steeper with many double chevrons. I was grateful for my training in the Yorkshire Dales and especially my last Sunday out with the club. This climb was a bit like the one out of Colne with a few Addingham Moorsides thrown in and for much, much longer.

There were so many cyclists tackling the climb at the same time as me. 99% of them were male. I saw only 3 females the whole way up - 2 went past on their road bikes and I went past another who was walking with her bike. She didn't seem to be a serious cyclist, I think it was the flip-flops that she was wearing that gave it away.

Up, up, up. Push, push, push. I'd forgotten how much my lower back aches on these climbs especially on my heavy bike. But the tourer has amazing gears that can get me up pretty much anything.

Chalet Reynard was a welcome sight at the end of the lengthy forest section. I sat outside for a cup of tea with the usual unfathomable large jug of milk to accompany it. I drank the jug of milk as well which was far bigger than my cup of tea. A good extra dollop of protein and calcium :-)

Now there were just 6km to go. The riders from Sault join the road by Chalet Reynard so it was even busier with cyclists now. Most had overtaken me on the way up so far and this continued. I surprisingly overtook a few others as well. Some people were walking with their bikes, some were all over the road unable to pace themselves earlier in the ride and were now broken. One guy had a really slack jaw and could barely speak. I felt pretty good. But then I need to preserve energy for the next 2 weeks of mountainous cycling.

It was a real party atmosphere at the top! And absolutely packed. I hung around for a while, got my photo taken (attached), took some others photos and just drank it all in. This mountain has been on my hit list for so long and now I've done it! A wonderful moment :-))

Instead of just descending back to Bedoin, I wanted to head over the mountain and down to Malaucene which is another village synonymous with this mountain and the start point for many other cyclists. Malaucene was very pretty and I ate the 2nd part of my lunch there. I needed to warm back up after the descent. It's beautifully sunny and hot. The wind has not been too bad, despite the forecast. The temperature is set to get hotter again over the next few days.

And then I finally looped back round to Bedoin along a very pretty route heavily scented with all the trees (no idea what they are but they smell gorgeous). It was very undulating and with stunning scenery which helped to keep my mind off my increasingly sore legs.

And now I'm charging the phone again which is a great opportunity to get the blog written and I've brought my maps along to look at options for tomorrow's route. One aim is to go via Sault which is the last of the 3 famous villages associated with Ventoux. I think Sault is the most popular start point for cyclists climbing the mountain. Bedoin is meant to be the hardest, possibly because it's the longest? I'm not sure.

So I'm a very happy bunny today and loving this heat. I've earned my glass of wine tonight.

Mary, you said those magic words "a proper cup of tea", thank you. Absolute music to my ears. I'm on my way!!

Cheery-bye for now everyone :-))

Andi xx

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