- Location
- The TerrorVortex
Well, I did it!
We stayed at Sault, which is at the start of the easiest route up Mont Ventoux. The route from here to Chalet Reynard gains about 1000m in 20 km, so it's broadly speaking a 5% or 1:20 gradient. The road mostly climbs through farmland, lavender fields and then forest. Very little in the way of traffic - I was probably passed by a few dozen cars tops, and all with the kind of consideration that's so common in France and so very rare over here. I was stopping every couple of k for a drink or something to eat - I was looking to finish the climb comfortably, rather that to achieve any particular time. Even in early May it was really quite warm.
Getting to Chalet Reynard took almost exactly two hours. Stopped there to fill water bottles and top up with caffiene and sugar. Coffee and Coke is an unholy combination.
The top 6k loomed like a giant looming thing, and any happy memories of gear-other-than-bottom vanished. This was tough. This was relentless. Hot, airless, desolate - a horrible, awful place. No shade, no flat sections, it just went on and on, up and up, getting hotter and steeper all the while. It took about an hour. That hour lasted a lifetime. And the final hairpin is the worst. The picture where I'm sprinting for the top - check out the gaps under the windows of the building on the right. That's stupidly, insanely, cruelly steep.
The 26 km of downhill made up for it all though!
And some photos :-
[Photos removed after some time, to retain allure of anonimity]
We stayed at Sault, which is at the start of the easiest route up Mont Ventoux. The route from here to Chalet Reynard gains about 1000m in 20 km, so it's broadly speaking a 5% or 1:20 gradient. The road mostly climbs through farmland, lavender fields and then forest. Very little in the way of traffic - I was probably passed by a few dozen cars tops, and all with the kind of consideration that's so common in France and so very rare over here. I was stopping every couple of k for a drink or something to eat - I was looking to finish the climb comfortably, rather that to achieve any particular time. Even in early May it was really quite warm.
Getting to Chalet Reynard took almost exactly two hours. Stopped there to fill water bottles and top up with caffiene and sugar. Coffee and Coke is an unholy combination.
The top 6k loomed like a giant looming thing, and any happy memories of gear-other-than-bottom vanished. This was tough. This was relentless. Hot, airless, desolate - a horrible, awful place. No shade, no flat sections, it just went on and on, up and up, getting hotter and steeper all the while. It took about an hour. That hour lasted a lifetime. And the final hairpin is the worst. The picture where I'm sprinting for the top - check out the gaps under the windows of the building on the right. That's stupidly, insanely, cruelly steep.
The 26 km of downhill made up for it all though!
And some photos :-
[Photos removed after some time, to retain allure of anonimity]
