 |
| Jussi Veikkanen, FDJ and Finland climbing (photo: Touho Häkkinen) |
The Mont Ventoux - Windy Mountain or Bald Mountain, if you wish - stands out above Provence plain landscape and the huge mountain is a point of reference for all around. On clear days one can even view the Mediterranean from the top. Situated as last Alpine mountain ridge before the Rhône plain, the Mont Ventoux can be seen almost from everywhere in Provence. Its isolated position gives it a gigantic and dominating feature. In all directions youll have no higher peaks in the neighbourhood of the Mont Ventoux.
Many bikers know why it is called "Windy Mountain", the wind blows at 90+ km/h 240 days a year!
 |
| Mont Ventoux profile from Bedoin (ericbaes.jbridge.be) |
Mont Ventoux is one of the toughest ascents in road cycling. The thing is, Mont Ventoux is chronic steep. From Bedoin the ascent begins with easy rolling and few percentages to grades of 9% to 11% throughout the rest of the climb. The difference to many other ascents: the climb is very constant.
Mont Ventoux has become legendary as the scene of the most gruelling climbs in the Tour de France history. The Tour has ascended the mountain fourteen times since 1951. The most recent TdF ascent of the Ventoux was won by Rabobank's Spanish climber Juan Manuel Gárate.
 |
| Lance Arsmstrong climbing Mont Ventoux 2009 (photo: Touho Häkkinen) |
The race has finished at the summit of Mont Ventoux eight times:
1958 Charly Gaul LUX
1965 Raymond Poulidor FRA
1970 Eddy Merckx BEL
1972 Bernard Thévenet FRA
1987 Jean-François Bernard FRA
2000 Marco Pantani ITA
2002 Richard Virenque FRA
2009 Juan Manuel Gárate ESP
The race has also crossed the summit six times.
1951 Lucien Lazarides FRA
1952 Jean Robic FRA
1955 Louison Bobet FRA
1967 Julio Jiménez ESP
1974 Gonzalo Aja ESP
1994 Eros Poli ITA
Bobby Julich, special comment to ESPN.com:
"For me, the 18-kilometer climb up Mont Ventoux is like no other. You can see so much ahead of you on the road. You can see the riders up at the next turn, which can play mind games with yourself because you know it takes two more minutes for you to get to where those riders are. Plus, it's hard to tell if you're advancing or gaining time on those riders. Then you're over the tree line of the climb and you hit the lunar landscape. The last six kilometers are straight uphill and you are riding those last kilometers at a higher altitude, which is a factor. I was never a great altitude climber, so that's likely why I suffered so much. You assume you can keep a quick pace at altitude, but you can't push as many watts and you can't gain speed." (the American finished third overall in the 1998 Tour de France and won the Paris-Nice race in 2005)
 |
| Real old-timer at Mont Ventoux (photo: Touho Häkkinen) |
Every year there are amateur races to climb the mountain as quickly and often as possible in 24 hours, the "Ventoux Masterseries" and "Les Cinglés du Mont Ventoux". On May 16, 2006, Jean-Pascal Roux from Bédoin broke the record of climbs in 24 hours, with eleven climbs, all of them from Bédoin. Great respect from Team Zoncolan, Jean-Pascal!
 |
| Photo: Touho Häkkinen |
The old man Oopee Z (photo) made this ascent in 2009, the day before Garate and other pro boys came to the mountain. "Let´s not talk about the time... The temperature was nearly 40° C. Before the open landscape the heat was terrible. The crowd was incredible, the media estimate was 500.000 people supporting and celebrating along the road! That was a real fight and the last hairpin less than 100 m from the top was nearly too much and I was wiggling like a teen-age-boy in front of the girls."
CLICK HERE TO see our article Mont Ventoux Part 1.
 |
| Just before Mont Ventoux climb, see the temperature! (photo: Touho Häkkinen) |
No comments:
Post a Comment