The Ventoux File – Part 4: The Big Day

So it is, that almost a year to the day we had first set our eyes on the ‘Beast of Provence’ we find ourselves once again at the foot of the mountain. We are a team of four – Joe and Georgie on the bikes, Suzannah and Alex cheerleading from the car. In contrast to my visit in early May, this hot June day finds the slopes once again crammed with eager masochists.

We are a bit concerned for Georgie’s chances of completing the ascent. A less than whole-hearted approach to training means she’ll have to fall back on natural talent and sheer pig-headedness. She has form: a previous long-distance bike-ride from The Hague to Amsterdam and back resulted in her having to be scraped from the saddle in a state of total exhaustion. So we double up on energy bars and drinks…though not quite enough as it turns out.

The early kilometres are not too bad. The presence of all those other climbers helps maintain the determination. Also, the roadside  is lined with spectators, no doubt waiting for their own heroes to appear, who clap and cheer us all along with shouts of ‘bon courage’. Suzannah and Alex periodically pass us, horn screaming, in the car. We make it to Chalet Renard in reasonably good shape but there is plenty of climbing still to do. The sun beats down on the bare limestone rock, dazzling and dehydrating us. There is no shade, no hiding place, on these upper slopes. 

Meanwhile things take a turn for the worse in the car. Suzannah’s near-pathological fear of heights resurfaces as she manoeuvres onto the narrow verge of the mountain side to watch us pass. Telling Alex that she feels like driving, Thelma and Louise-like, off the mountain does nothing to calm the situation.  

Anyone who has climbed Ventoux will recognise the infinite regress which characterises the last few kilometres. Shortly after Chalet Renard a sharp right turn brings the iconic white observatory-tower suddenly into view. The end is literally in sight! As you pedal frantically towards it, the tower disappears behind the intervening steep face of the mountain, to reappear once more at the next hairpin-bend. But at each reappearance it seems no nearer – you feel trapped in one of those Escher drawings where you can climb and climb forever whilst going precisely nowhere. But then when all hope of reaching the finish has just about evaporated, we make one last turn and suddenly there it is, right above us – and only a few hundred yards to go!

But Ventoux is not yet finished with us – the gradient once more steepens for these last few metres, draining what minimal reserves of energy we still retain. Riders weave across the road, unable to maintain a straight path to the finish, oblivious to the cars that avoid them by inches. I think back to the Memorial to Tommy Simpson we passed a few moments earlier. It marks the spot where the British cyclist collapsed and died during the 1967 Tour and is a vivid reminder that this mountain is not to be trifled with.

Meanwhile dehydration has finally become alarming.  I had earlier given the last of my water to Georgie (not through vainglorious chivalry but from fear of Suzannah’s reaction later had I refused) and both head and heart are pounding. My mouth feels like an ashtray someone has been sick in. I speed up a little to get it over with before my knees explode, leaving Georgie to bring up the rear. 

Amazingly I reach the top and turn to find Georgie. As she rounds the final steep bend she seems to be trying to dismount. Alex rushes to plomp her back in the saddle and after an encouraging push she too reaches the summit. We have done it! 

Epilogue

But what was all that nonsense about my mother in law you ask; what did that have do with this? Well, everything really. Helen should have been with us that day in Vaison La Romaine, but she was too ill to travel. Instead she remained at home undergoing punishing treatment for cancer. Tragically she did not recover and she died a few months before we made our ascent. But we had her with us in more than just spirit that day. With all of us sporting a photo-badge of Helen from an earlier French holiday, I carried her ashes to the top in my backpack. Torn between euphoria and grief we cast her ashes from the viewpoint at the top towards the distant Alps. 

So if I misled you it was not about Helen. It was in implying that there was ever any doubt that we would make it. With Helen on the team there was no way we could fail.