July 2011
This summer’s trip has been inspired by R. L. Stevenson’s ‘Travels With A Donkey’, a 19th century blog of their adventures in Les Cevennes in Southern France. During the escapade, R. L. Stevenson accidentally invents the sleeping bag.
The Pyrenean adventure last year suffered from my choice of a very damp and inglorious Glorious June. This year we are putting our money on the odds-on favourite for good weather, late July. The route up the Tarn, through Lozere and down to the Rhone will climax at the top, I hope, of Mont Ventoux before we skedaddle down to Marseilles.
Travel Arrangements
As always, prior to booking the plane I spend hours poring over train, bike-bus, ferry and balloon routes in an attempt to avoid taking the plane. As always, we end up taking the plane. We fly to Toulouse and return from Marseilles, thus allowing no room for heading back to the airport early - the reason for the failed Malaga-Pico Veleta trip last year. Thoroughly reliable and obliging British Airways cost £188.00 each for the pleasure though we will end up paying £30 or so each way for an extra bag to stash the panniers.New Kit
Bike
Well, I decided to upgrade my bicycle this summer. Buying a bike is like buying anything where there are options. Computers, cameras and bicycles all have the same quandaries of opportunity cost. If you have one thing you like on one bike you like, it probably won’t have that other thing that you like, which is on that other bike you like, but is on that other bike you like, the one that doesn’t have the other, other thing you like. I liked the frame shape on the Voyage. I liked the legend of the Galaxy. I didn’t like the rear block on the Voyage. I liked the racks and cages on the Panorama. I liked the steel alloy of the Galaxy and Panorama. I did like the brake/gear doodah on the Panorama and not the bar end shifters on the Galaxy or the ones on the Voyage and so on....
After many hours googling and calling and haggling I opted for the World Panorama 2011 by Ridgeback. This was purchased from Evans Cycles after taking advantage of their price promise which reduced the price from 1249 to 1079. I had chosen this bike over the Dawes Galaxy because of the better gears and, very importantly, because it was a nice colour.
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| lots and lots of extra bits |
Handlebar bag
There is a very fine line in cycle-touring – a barely visible line – that you cannot wander across, back and forth, willy-nilly. From casual touring, slip though one innocent looking door and before you know it you've become an obsessive: conversation is dominated by elevation, col count and gadgets! Buy a handlebar bag and you're well over the other side. I quite like my handlebar bag. It is the focal point, the nerve centre, the ship’s bridge – full of gadgets and kit – maps, compasses, computers, gels, large portions of cake etc etc.There are many to choose from – Ortleib, Altura, Topeak - all with difficult fixing arrangements involving piano wire that, once, affixed, are difficult to un-affix.
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| actual size |
In addition, the Ortleib is very rigid and weird to open while the Altura, along with most solid bar bags, was fine as long as you removed your very handy STI gear cables. It was the humble Bikehut bag from Halfords that got my vote and 24.99. It has a very easy-to-fix fixing thing that doesn't take an hour and a bundle of tools to remove when you are done with the trip.
I’d also plumbed for cleats and shoes – on the basis that the flash new bike came with Shimano SPD pedals and that such an arrangement improved one’s cycling efficiency. I’d heard that it takes a couple months to get used to being attached to your bike with cleats. The nifty twist to uncleat yourself from the cleat must become second nature so that you NEVER forget to get your feet out. Falling over at traffic lights and roundabouts etc is very dangerous.
I switched my fancy new pedals over to my old bike and went to a park, found some grass and cycled around for a while without falling off. I then graduated onto a quiet road with only my right foot in the cleat (the pedals had both normal and cleated sides.) From there I moved onto both feet – stopping all the time to practise the move and eventually I took to traffic, only cleating both feet once away from junctions etc. Even so, once I put the pedals back on the new bike and practised it had only been two weeks by the time we flew into Toulouse.Barkage
This term describes the level of general noise of a campsite and can include a variety of incidental noises such as crickets, children, TGVs, low-flying attack helicopters, incessant road traffic, farmyard animals, spooky rustling noises and, of course, dogs.
The elements are permanent features of the specific campsite whereas snoring cannot be blamed on place. The presence of children, however, is included, as they are accepted by most campisites these days although, of course, for many years there weren't and had to be left outside.
Toulouse to Ambialet 66.9 miles
Waiting for the bikes to reach the baggage area in one piece is always a barrel of laughs. There were several cyclists from the UK who'd popped over for some training. Their bikes were all neatly stowed in hard boxes but for one who'd used a soft shell bag. A buggy delivered a stack of boxes to the arrivals' hall - with the soft shell beneath a couple of hard shells. Ours, of course, were neatly wrapped and whole in the CTC bags.
In no time at all everything was realigned and the pumps tyred up. This was our third time at Toulouse and like any other airport getting away from it can be a bit hit and miss, especially as it had undergone development over the years. Avoid the dual carriageway as there is a nifty service road that leads out onto the streets of Toulouse.
We crossed the peripherique at one hundred o'clock hours pm then sped over two ridges before picking up the lazy Tarn at Saint Sulpice at two. The weather was fine and the gradient slight as we hurtled along the D888 towards Albi.
The scenery wasn't breathtakingly stunning and the road was busy but the 60 miles stint was a good way to warm up the legs for the stuff to come. Once we’d got hold of the right stove gas from Go Sports, having been shown the way through a hairy, busy junction by a kindly old timer who’d once cycled Bolivia, we turned east and headed to Ambialet. The scenery closed in as the gorge developed. Sort out some lights and adult nappies as there are several tunnels, one of which that has no lighting at all.
Ambialet to Millau 59.7 miles
Millau is pronounced me-o and not Mill-ow. No-one knew where Mill-ow was.
More tunnels through the narrowing gorge and a particularly scary one that had no lighting, and went uphill in a zig-zag. Boy, was that a thriller.
Lots of bridges as the road cut corners and bends and all beneath a grey, drizzle-filled sky. The D700 is a ‘white’ road according to IGN and this ran on the north bank with the busier D77 on the south. It makes a difference in summer not being chased down by trucks and caravans, although truckers tend to be the most considerate of all the drivers on French roads. The road number would change around every bend and eventually it became the D902 and crossing the river at La Vayssiere it enters that tunnel.
The gorge narrowed past Verdalie so as to send the road, by now the D200, upwards. After a brief downhill to the reservoir at Pinet it rises up again to give a fuller view of the stunning scenery that the Tarn cuts through. After another hill and a few twists and turns the valley broadens out, the plateau above, a thousand metres up, cut in two by the Tarn leaving escarpments glowing in the afternoon sun. Around another bend the enormous and incredible Millau Viaduct, the world’s tallest bridge at 1000 feet and over 8000 feet long, looked as if it had been photo-shopped onto the valley.
We stopped at one of the several campsites on the east bank of the Tarn and paid a bundle which, it turned out included complimentary eurodisco beamed directly into everyone’s tents at 2.30am. A few miles north we would have found something a little quieter. We’d knocked off 120 miles in two days, with both the weather and roads being easy going. 11 euros each at campstie.
An alternative would have been to take on the huge vertical escarpment on our left to get on to the plateau but we figured following these rivers would provide more spectacular views than the relatively featureless uplands. Having said that, it was getting a bit boring constantly going uphill – by now 150 miles.
I’d bought my telescopic rod to have a dabble but the river was never near enough or full enough and I’d been unable to find anywhere selling the 30€ vacation permit.
But one thing with all this hill stuff was the rhythm. The riddim takes you through the pain and up the gradient and any kind of stopping for more than a minute means a spate of muscle burn and a good while trying to regain the cadence – lots of screaming, wobbling about and dreaming of comfy seats, chicken and chips, egg and chips, fresh underwear etc.
After a feeding stop at the 8 a huit on the way into Meyruis, we rose steeply to the inevitable pass. The D996 rose nearly 300 metres in 6km to the Col de Perjuret at 1028m, ranking 6394th in climbybike.com’s difficulty rankings, just above Park Lane.
If you were at this height in the UK you’d be on top of a ‘peak’ in a howling gale in a cagoule looking down on creation as if on top of the world. Here, we’d done all that just to get to a car park and some rubbish bins. This leg work, however, was required to build up the muscles for Ventoux – and get the head straight about big hills. Big ones go on and on and on so this little col, painful as it was, was merely a trifling irritation.
And down the other side...All went well for the first five or six km but then there was an unusual experience. Being four in the afternoon, we were both a bit cream crackered and a wee bit hot and bothered. The road, now the D907, began to level out as the valley developed but with no points of reference the road ahead looked as if it was downhill when in fact it was going uphill and if you looked behind it also looked as if we were coming downhill but the legs and gears told the truth. Eventually we made it to Florac and stocked up at a Carrefour – (Carry foo) before punishing ourselves with a further 3km uphill on the D998 to Bedoues and the very nice and cheap campsite just over the bridge.
In the early evening sun, the stretch of river adjacent to the site was like some impressionist painting – people paddling while others lay across rocks, basking in the warmth of the late afternoon sun;
a man waded thigh deep as he followed fish about the clear, calm pools in kids dangled bamboo poles and string.
We had a couple of beers at a neighbouring campsite and discussed Ventoux. After the hills and cols of the last two days, the purpose of cycling Ventoux seemed nebulous – was it to endure pain? Was it to show off? We could do another big hill tomorrow to take us up to the plateau and we would have had our fill of pain. So we decided to head to the Carmargue instead and take it from there, passing Avignon on the way. We returned to the tents and the two bottles of Ardeche July 2011 to discuss our excuses some more. What did pain prove? We’d been up big hills on previous trips – we’d been up one of he biggest. Why do it again? The child, from the tent next door, began crying with the sheer pressure of the questions. Yes. Why bother?
We stopped at one of the several campsites on the east bank of the Tarn and paid a bundle which, it turned out included complimentary eurodisco beamed directly into everyone’s tents at 2.30am. A few miles north we would have found something a little quieter. We’d knocked off 120 miles in two days, with both the weather and roads being easy going. 11 euros each at campstie.
Millau to Bedoues 47.5 miles
The road, the D187, on the eastern side of the valley was very quiet as we trundled northwards up to La Cresse through more beautiful scenery. We crossed the river to Riviere-sur-Tarn for coffee and pastries before continuing up the Tarn valley until Le Rozier, where we jumped ship and took the D996 east up the much narrower and steeper gorge of La Jonte.
An alternative would have been to take on the huge vertical escarpment on our left to get on to the plateau but we figured following these rivers would provide more spectacular views than the relatively featureless uplands. Having said that, it was getting a bit boring constantly going uphill – by now 150 miles.
I’d bought my telescopic rod to have a dabble but the river was never near enough or full enough and I’d been unable to find anywhere selling the 30€ vacation permit. 
But one thing with all this hill stuff was the rhythm. The riddim takes you through the pain and up the gradient and any kind of stopping for more than a minute means a spate of muscle burn and a good while trying to regain the cadence – lots of screaming, wobbling about and dreaming of comfy seats, chicken and chips, egg and chips, fresh underwear etc.
Dogs
Dogs are always barking when you pass them. They run to the barbed-wire/electric fence with their lips curled back, their fangs glistening as their hungry, virulently pink chops salivate. All this well before you actually pass. How do they know you are coming? What can they hear? What does a cyclist smell of?After a feeding stop at the 8 a huit on the way into Meyruis, we rose steeply to the inevitable pass. The D996 rose nearly 300 metres in 6km to the Col de Perjuret at 1028m, ranking 6394th in climbybike.com’s difficulty rankings, just above Park Lane.
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| Cadel waiting to catch La Poste |
If you were at this height in the UK you’d be on top of a ‘peak’ in a howling gale in a cagoule looking down on creation as if on top of the world. Here, we’d done all that just to get to a car park and some rubbish bins. This leg work, however, was required to build up the muscles for Ventoux – and get the head straight about big hills. Big ones go on and on and on so this little col, painful as it was, was merely a trifling irritation.
And down the other side...All went well for the first five or six km but then there was an unusual experience. Being four in the afternoon, we were both a bit cream crackered and a wee bit hot and bothered. The road, now the D907, began to level out as the valley developed but with no points of reference the road ahead looked as if it was downhill when in fact it was going uphill and if you looked behind it also looked as if we were coming downhill but the legs and gears told the truth. Eventually we made it to Florac and stocked up at a Carrefour – (Carry foo) before punishing ourselves with a further 3km uphill on the D998 to Bedoues and the very nice and cheap campsite just over the bridge.
In the early evening sun, the stretch of river adjacent to the site was like some impressionist painting – people paddling while others lay across rocks, basking in the warmth of the late afternoon sun;
a man waded thigh deep as he followed fish about the clear, calm pools in kids dangled bamboo poles and string.We had a couple of beers at a neighbouring campsite and discussed Ventoux. After the hills and cols of the last two days, the purpose of cycling Ventoux seemed nebulous – was it to endure pain? Was it to show off? We could do another big hill tomorrow to take us up to the plateau and we would have had our fill of pain. So we decided to head to the Carmargue instead and take it from there, passing Avignon on the way. We returned to the tents and the two bottles of Ardeche July 2011 to discuss our excuses some more. What did pain prove? We’d been up big hills on previous trips – we’d been up one of he biggest. Why do it again? The child, from the tent next door, began crying with the sheer pressure of the questions. Yes. Why bother?
7 euros each at campiest.
The Col des Faisses at 1018 was the high point as the road flattened out across the plateau with spectacular views across valleys. We hurtled down hair pins to Pompidou, a small picturesque village of patchy stucco, friendly foliage and a postcard cafe. It also possessed a ghostly ex-campsite. The road descended rapidly towards St Jean du Gard and soon the Cevennes were beginning to dwindle but for one last hurrah with a steep one up to the charming campsite in Corbes. Camping a la Ferme was Corbes. The grassy pitches, split in two by a small vineyard, were one side of the road while the toilets were on the other.
Smatterings of wild mint gave the site a herbidacious aroma but, due to a kiddies trampoline, the barkage was high, the last of the wee brats putting a sock in it around 10pm.
7.50 each for campites.
We had tried a campsite further towards Anduz: one with an entrance befitting Graceland. There were bars, shops, restaurants, boule pitches and it probably had its own football league, radio station and cemetery. It had the feel of an alien planet as featured in an early episode of Star Trek where everyone smiled all the time whilst hiding a gruesome secret. Avoid.
We headed over to a ridge via the 982 then passed through Maruejols des Gardon and under the motorway to head south east on the 936 before cutting over to Moussac and another 982 then taking some proper bonefide back roads to get us to Saint Chaptes.
This little town had a thing going down that day with bulls running around and a big soapy pool event somewhat similar to a wet t shirt competition in the main square – a little bit incestuous by the looks of it. The next village was also running the bulls.
The plan was an early night and up at six for a seven O’hundred hours am clock start after an early evening beer just to be polite and to get the vibe. We sat in the sun outside the main event and watched lycra clad road bikers cruising about.
D and his weight advantage were way ahead of me. We’d left the signpost in the town at 7.25 and it was nine and so I was beginning to wane. I stopped for a minute just before the Chalet Reynard, which was just opening for business, to ram in two pain au chocolate. The easy route from Sault joins the road at the cafe. Until then there had been few cyclists and cars but now I was getting passed as if I was on a Brompton with stabilisers.
I caught up with a pair of English riders. One had ridiculously low gears and his feet were flying around for each yard he covered. The other guy had already been to the top and had come back down to go back up with his buddy. I stopped at Tom Simpson’s memorial – very much near the top but further on there is a much smaller plaque for another cyclist who died in1984. Yet another British cyclist died on Ventoux after a crash while descending in 2003.
The views are amazing as the mountain stands by itself, estranged from the Alps. The wind that day was not the fearsome force that the Ventoux is notorious for. The summit is understandably a tourist trap so you have to keep an eye open for all manner of motorised stuff.
The way down. No as spectacularly fast as some as there a fewer hairpins. By now it was 11am and all and sundry were on the 974 – walkers, loaded-up tourers, roller skaters (going up), runners, nutters on BMX style bikes in sandals.
If you are a complete glutton for pain you can attempt to join Les Cinglés du Mont Ventoux. To be accepted you have to complete all three ascents in one day – a total of 4500m climbing and 136km in distance. You are allowed to start early and use lights but you must get a card stamped by the various cafes and the like on the routes that double as control points. Duh.
We returned triumphantly to the campsite to pack up the tents. Then, omelet and chips at a cafe in the town. Bedoin is a great little town for feeling the vibe. Everyone is on a bike - more or less - but there is still that pastis-and-Gauloise-for-breakfast feel about it.
We had one and a half days left and decided on a wee bit of Provence and headed towards Robion for some more hill work in the Luberon, a ridge in Provence and a another cyclist magnet.
The campsite, well outside the village, was a rusty old, dusty old farm surrounded by roughly mown fields. It was boiling but had a cool pool, though barkage was high with shrieking and splashing. We signed up for the communal meal of moules et frites special, did a few beers and a bottle of wine and the big day was over. 10.50 each for the capstime.
Bonneaux clings to a ridge, its castle dominating the valley. 7 euros for two cwaffees to watch Range rovers and BMW leviathans jockeying for parking space into the narrow streets.
From Bonneaux we headed directly south to Cadenet, crossed the Durance, a river we’d followed in the Alps through Briancon a few years back. Then south again, then west across to Lambesc before one final graveyard shift.
417 miles
Florac to Corbes 40 miles
Florac sounds like some tablet for bowel dysfunction or a carpet cleaner, but it, is in fact, a cutesy Cevennes town. We passed through it again – something unheard of in our previous tours - on our way back to pick up the hill to the plateau. We left the 907 at Le Mazel for the 983 which rose 380m in 6k to the col de Rey. There was plenty of traffic on this road that was ideal for showing off: motorbikes leaning into tight bends, Italian-job Minis, boy racers. The Cevennes is home to several quarries and cementieries – a word I made up – so there are big dusty lorries about and the sides of the roads often have a trail of lumpy and hazardous hardened spilt mortar.
The Col des Faisses at 1018 was the high point as the road flattened out across the plateau with spectacular views across valleys. We hurtled down hair pins to Pompidou, a small picturesque village of patchy stucco, friendly foliage and a postcard cafe. It also possessed a ghostly ex-campsite. The road descended rapidly towards St Jean du Gard and soon the Cevennes were beginning to dwindle but for one last hurrah with a steep one up to the charming campsite in Corbes. Camping a la Ferme was Corbes. The grassy pitches, split in two by a small vineyard, were one side of the road while the toilets were on the other.
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| Corbes |
Smatterings of wild mint gave the site a herbidacious aroma but, due to a kiddies trampoline, the barkage was high, the last of the wee brats putting a sock in it around 10pm.
7.50 each for campites.
We had tried a campsite further towards Anduz: one with an entrance befitting Graceland. There were bars, shops, restaurants, boule pitches and it probably had its own football league, radio station and cemetery. It had the feel of an alien planet as featured in an early episode of Star Trek where everyone smiled all the time whilst hiding a gruesome secret. Avoid.
Campsites
There is an romantic ideal in cyclo-camping - you cycle around unfettered by schedules, routes and mission to just pitch up wherever you find a campsite - or you simply wild camp. I am slightly envious of this attitude but when you don't have unlimited time for one of these free-style jaunts then priorities do come into play. Cycling hither and thither in heat, weighed down by the packs on my rack and dreams of a cold beer and a hot shower, is beyond my limit if I have to get from A to B. Not worrying about finding a site allows me to enjoy the limited time by doing what I came for: the cycling, the views, the cafes, the peace - AND relaxing early evening with the pitch all sorted. The internet provides a fairly accurate low-down on campsites throughout Europe (2015) but back in 2010 neither of the sites were open to scrutiny.Corbes to Villeneuve les Avignon 61 miles
After indulging on one of the many cafes in Anduz, we headed east towards the Rhone. In no time at all the Cevennes had receded to be replaced by a flat, hot landscape with farms either side of the road – Renault dealerships and other nefarious warehousing allowing – often with a battery of polytunnels. |
| flat |
We headed over to a ridge via the 982 then passed through Maruejols des Gardon and under the motorway to head south east on the 936 before cutting over to Moussac and another 982 then taking some proper bonefide back roads to get us to Saint Chaptes.
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| dry |
This little town had a thing going down that day with bulls running around and a big soapy pool event somewhat similar to a wet t shirt competition in the main square – a little bit incestuous by the looks of it. The next village was also running the bulls.
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| bull |
Cycling the flat in the heat with no particular kind of view was beginning to get boring. There is nothing to look at except, more often than not, acres of vineyards, fields of dead sunflowers, or the occasional chateau. This day's ride was really just a filler to get us to the south but it got so boring I was beginning to miss the hills and their challenges and views. A ridge developed along the 112 to Collias which gave good views across the Rhone valley, and, right in the distance, was the enormous Mont Ventoux. Covered with dark green vegetation for most part, the top seemed to be snow-covered with its notorious sun bleached, moonscape summit. In the dull and lifeless flatness of the valley floor, our new plans seemed likewise, and so, before long, we began to think back to the original plan and The Beast of Provence.
After dropping down from the ridge through Cabrieres, we headed east through Bezouce to Meynes during that time of day when everything starts to be hard work – energy, staying interested, staying awake. The road became straight and boring and the respite of Montfrin was only brief as we got to the Rhone and the dull busy road to Aramon. We’d timed our expectancy of hitting a campsite to evaporate at Aramon but a gendarme nin a patrol car said we’d have to get much nearer Avignon. Water was running out and so that shrewdly saved banana saved the day as we crawled up the Rhone to Villeneuve les Avignon and its very tidy municipal campsite with its very welcome snack bar serving up a huge plate of frites for 2 evros.
Over a couple of beers and couple of bouteilles de vin, we predictably reverted back to plan A.
D and I would wash shorts each evening and, if they hadn’t dried overnight, they'd be tied to a bungee to dry on the rack but, down in the roasting, toasting valley, the gear was dry by the morning.
10.50 each for campiste
It was already one and we’d covered about 20 miles, six of which didn’t count. We were going to Sault, as that was the starting point of the easiest of the routes up Ventoux. Malaucene was the second easiest/hardest of the three but was the furthest to get to. We stopped for an anchovy pizza then sped off in the midday heat through more tame scenery until we caught sight of the big one again, lurking in the distance and showing more its detail. A trouble with Sault was that it had one campsite and we’d not get there before 6. After a brief discussion involving all kinds of showy bravado, we changed course for Bedoin and the hardest and most notorious route – ‘unrelenting’, ‘11%’, etc, etc and its difficulty ranking of 141 and 5-star ratings at cimbbybike. Bedoin reputedly had a vibe about it and had at least six campsites.
After dropping down from the ridge through Cabrieres, we headed east through Bezouce to Meynes during that time of day when everything starts to be hard work – energy, staying interested, staying awake. The road became straight and boring and the respite of Montfrin was only brief as we got to the Rhone and the dull busy road to Aramon. We’d timed our expectancy of hitting a campsite to evaporate at Aramon but a gendarme nin a patrol car said we’d have to get much nearer Avignon. Water was running out and so that shrewdly saved banana saved the day as we crawled up the Rhone to Villeneuve les Avignon and its very tidy municipal campsite with its very welcome snack bar serving up a huge plate of frites for 2 evros.
Over a couple of beers and couple of bouteilles de vin, we predictably reverted back to plan A.
D and I would wash shorts each evening and, if they hadn’t dried overnight, they'd be tied to a bungee to dry on the rack but, down in the roasting, toasting valley, the gear was dry by the morning.
10.50 each for campiste
Villneuve les Avignon to Bedoin 33 miles
We started the day with some faffing. I had left the handle for the pans by a sink somewhere back in the Cevennes – and I was sure Decathlon sold them separately. The woman at the campsite told me there was a store in Les Angles which, after a three mile uphill ride, turned out to be untrue. We backtracked then crossed the Rhone on the non-roman pont du Avignon for a brief session of pointing at things before getting directions from the tourist office for a Decathlon en route to Sault. After a scary dual carriage way and a number of very helpful locals we found the cathedral of our sporting dreams but no handle. I asked if we could buy the one on display and was told, very helpfully, no. So we had to buy the kit in which the handle came – all of 7.99€– which meant that D could improve his cooking options and that we no longer burned our fingers. |
| one metre pizza |
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| one of D's many tour 'poses' |
We stocked up at Mazan.
Bedoin
It was four O’clock. You could fry an egg in the air. Two campsites were already full. We looked further afield. Way out on the outskirts of town was a large fenced off site – we couldn’t see in but we could hear the joyful screams and laughter. We suspected it was some kind of Center Parc/Village of the Damned affair. D entered the reception just as I noticed the word ‘naturiste’ on a hoarding. As D innocently asked the reception staff dressed in powder blue blouse/skirt combos if they were a campsite, we both caught a glimpse of naked bodies wobbling about. The receptionist said it was a naturist camp. D looked around at me and just said: ‘Yeah, OK. You alright with that, Pat?’ She didn’t fall for that one and merely asked us for our Naturiste Society of the World membership cards. We sidled off. Eventually we found a site, way out on the other outskirts of town.The plan was an early night and up at six for a seven O’hundred hours am clock start after an early evening beer just to be polite and to get the vibe. We sat in the sun outside the main event and watched lycra clad road bikers cruising about.
After a while a man, incongruous in his non lycra shorts, ran down the hill and came to a weary, sweaty stop in front of us. He bent over, gulped some air and looked at his watch while his wife came to him with a towel. They came and sat at the adjacent table. Turns out he had just run 60km over 10 hours and the summit of Ventoux.
7 euros each at catsimpe
7 euros each at catsimpe
Bedoin to Robion 55 miles
Thanks to the Tour de France this Mt has been bigged up and, especially because of Tom Simpson, it is a legend. It has also been bigged up because it deserves it. There are three acts in the 22 km on the D974. The first stretch, and that is all it does, is a red herring of 5.6km to the little hamlet of Saint Esteve. An easy gradient and nice views – very pleasant. Then, just out of Saint Esteve is a hairpin and that is it: welcome to The Beast – bend after bend averaging over 10% through a featureless forest – rising 1000m in 9.4 km - until reaching the Chalet Reynard. Through the forest, I fell in fifty metres behind a young 'un and focusing on his back wheel kept my mind off stopping for a bun. Once you stop for a bun then you have a precedent for stopping for a bun again and before you know it you’ll be setting up bun camp. So, just keep going. The remaining 500m takes over 6km but in a barren landscape of fist sized rocks bleached by the sun. Words of encouragement and the names of Tour riders often cover the road particularly on short steep rises.
Once out of the forest I caught glimpses of the summit and the TV tower but around the next bend it was shrouded in cloud.
D and his weight advantage were way ahead of me. We’d left the signpost in the town at 7.25 and it was nine and so I was beginning to wane. I stopped for a minute just before the Chalet Reynard, which was just opening for business, to ram in two pain au chocolate. The easy route from Sault joins the road at the cafe. Until then there had been few cyclists and cars but now I was getting passed as if I was on a Brompton with stabilisers.
I caught up with a pair of English riders. One had ridiculously low gears and his feet were flying around for each yard he covered. The other guy had already been to the top and had come back down to go back up with his buddy. I stopped at Tom Simpson’s memorial – very much near the top but further on there is a much smaller plaque for another cyclist who died in1984. Yet another British cyclist died on Ventoux after a crash while descending in 2003.
I made it to the top and souvenir stalls at 10.10 – taking about 2 hours 40.
D had already made himself at home at the lower coffee bar having arrived 20 minutes before.
The views are amazing as the mountain stands by itself, estranged from the Alps. The wind that day was not the fearsome force that the Ventoux is notorious for. The summit is understandably a tourist trap so you have to keep an eye open for all manner of motorised stuff.
The way down. No as spectacularly fast as some as there a fewer hairpins. By now it was 11am and all and sundry were on the 974 – walkers, loaded-up tourers, roller skaters (going up), runners, nutters on BMX style bikes in sandals.
There were people nearer the bottom already walking with a pained expression – the heat was building so anyone leaving after 10am was going to be on the receiving end when they eventually left the forest. I got down in 45 minutes as I was stopping for photo opps and there were a fair number of idiot drivers taking bends too widely or overtaking as they careered up.
If you are a complete glutton for pain you can attempt to join Les Cinglés du Mont Ventoux. To be accepted you have to complete all three ascents in one day – a total of 4500m climbing and 136km in distance. You are allowed to start early and use lights but you must get a card stamped by the various cafes and the like on the routes that double as control points. Duh.
We returned triumphantly to the campsite to pack up the tents. Then, omelet and chips at a cafe in the town. Bedoin is a great little town for feeling the vibe. Everyone is on a bike - more or less - but there is still that pastis-and-Gauloise-for-breakfast feel about it.
We had one and a half days left and decided on a wee bit of Provence and headed towards Robion for some more hill work in the Luberon, a ridge in Provence and a another cyclist magnet.
The campsite, well outside the village, was a rusty old, dusty old farm surrounded by roughly mown fields. It was boiling but had a cool pool, though barkage was high with shrieking and splashing. We signed up for the communal meal of moules et frites special, did a few beers and a bottle of wine and the big day was over. 10.50 each for the capstime.
Robion to Marseilles 54 miles
We snuck out round about noon and took quiet roads towards Bonneaux, passing through well the preserved fancy dan villages of Maubec, Oppede and Menerbes.
Bonneaux clings to a ridge, its castle dominating the valley. 7 euros for two cwaffees to watch Range rovers and BMW leviathans jockeying for parking space into the narrow streets.
From Bonneaux we headed directly south to Cadenet, crossed the Durance, a river we’d followed in the Alps through Briancon a few years back. Then south again, then west across to Lambesc before one final graveyard shift.
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| another pose: 'Mercx' |
Once again we’d managed to find a long straight featureless ride, this time through a forest above Marseilles. I was trying to get to Marignane, the airport, without getting tangled up in an elaborate motorway system and the like. At Coudoux we went south to Velaux for the D20 and signposts to Rognac. The D20 managed to squeeze itself between the A7 and the Etang de Berre and took us to Vitrolles in the Marseilles suburbs and lo and behold there were signposts to the aeroporto. Marseilles is France’s second city but possesses the airport of somewhere like Norwich. There were just a few people wondering about in the cavernous Hall 1 as they waited for an occasional plane. We packed up the bikes and bags, deciding again to pay for the extra bag, and waited a couple of hours for the midnight flight. We’d saved a bottle of wine from the night before and so it had been up and down all the hills with us during the day. We knocked that back in the balmy evening air of the short-stay car park. And back to Gatwick, which was experiencing its normal 2am rush hour of charter flights.
417 miles
