The first day. . . Ventoux

. . . I woke up.

I brushed my teeth.

We ate breakfast.

We rode our bikes.

On the second day, I woke up. . . .

Here's the start of that chronology thing I promised.

There was one big aim of going to Provence this trip around, that was to do Mt Ventoux from each of the three paved approaches in one day. We arrived late Friday night, the 11th. The 12th was spent putting the bikes back together and getting resituated from Capentras to Bédoin, the starting point for our Ventoux assault. We did a short ride on Saturday afternoon and geared up for the Sunday ride.

That there ride's a good bit of work. Linda made it to the top from Bédoin, but her legs were cramping sufficiently enough to where she had to back off on her attempt to do all three. I headed down to Malaucene for the 2nd approach while Linda waited at the top trying to decide whether to drop down to the first chalet on the Malaucene side. While she was deciding what to do and letting her legs recover, she got caught in a hellacious rain and hail storm and she decided to head down to the Chalet Reynard on the Bédoin approach. She waited under the only awning she could find at Reynard with about 30 other shivering, wet, beat-up cyclists.

On the first approach from Bedoin.

Meanwhile, I refueled in Malaucene and headed back up oblivious to the goings on on the other side of the hill. Only after cresting the top did the road turn wet giving an indication of what had been going on. I caught up with Linda at Chalet Reynard where she was drying out and refueling with frites (french fries). Even though I didn't get rained on, the road was so wet that I looked and felt like I'd been swimming. I dried out a bit at Reynard and we both headed out to Sault, the beginning of the last summit.

We made it back to the top with the weather threatening, but no rain drops fell. It was cold and windy and quite a long day. Just under 15k feet of climbing in three summits. Now I get my name added to that goofy little website. We have an excuse to return--Linda feels she has some unfinished business. As for me, I don't need to see Mt Ventoux again for a while.

I didn't feel too bad, not great. I think I could have done a better job of eating--a typical weakness of mine on shorter rides (this was 88 miles).