Stage 12 - It's all about the mountain

Stage 12 and the eagerly awaited Montpelier to Mont Ventoux stage, oh and it's Bastille Day in France. The day when the French celebrate the storming of the Bastille in 1789 as part of a violent revolution and the unity of the people of France in 1790 AND the release of Bastille's first album in 2012 (thanks to Wikipedia for all that fact).

As the old adage goes, if a leaf is being blown a across the floor in Bedouin then it is howling a gale at the top of Ventoux and that is what the organisers expected yesterday to the point that it was deemed that they couldn't even set up a mini finish and it wasn't safe for the riders.

Normally the Tour finish is a 300 metre array of grandstands, commentary boxes, sponsorship boxes, interview areas, doping control and all the team buses etc. On some climbs like Alp D'Huez for example, there is a ski station at the top so plenty of room to put at least some of the normal finish. On Ventoux there is virtually no space. So even the riders will descend back down after the stage.

My breakfast was very nice, the owner who appears to do everything here took two phone calls while serving all of us and on each occasion sang the opening lines of the Marseillaise down the phone. Thankfully she had also forgotten our agreement that she would only speak French to me. She also asked how my room was and I couldn't tell her that as soon as she told me that my room, which is on its own in the top of the building had been an old church, that it had scared the life out of me. I was fine once I'd fallen asleep hiding under the sheet.

I managed to find a bakery and shop open on the bank holiday, made lunch and after a limited amount of faffing, was ready to head off. Somehow I managed to get lost while still
in Cap-en-tra but remembering that I just point and shoot at the big mountain I got myself sorted.

Immediately I picked up other riders all being drawn to Bedouin and the climb beyond.  On the way I rode up behind two cyclists, one of which had Dorking cycling club on his backside, so we struck up conversation and after after being invited to tag along and wait for another mate of theirs, I spent the day up the mountain with them.

As we rode into Beduoin we were greeted with what appeared to be a street carnival. The roads had been closed to cars for some hours already and everyone had parked up and was walking into town. The caravan was already giving out freebies due to the fact that the majority of the caravan couldn't get up the mountain.

While there were lots of people milling round, including us stopping off for a pan-a-raisin and coke the main drift was people setting off for the walk or ride up the mountain. It was immediately obvious that every available space to park a car or a camper van/motorhome had been taken along the 17km climb and a large part of the roadside space was taken especially in the areas near the town. There were certainly more Brits on this climb than previously and the vast majority of those were flying the Yorkshire flag as well.

The climb of Ventoux or any part of it has been weighing quite heavily on my mind for some time, so to suddenly find myself on the climb with three other people to talk and joke with certainly calmed me down.

Ignoring the fact the climb was cut short today, it's length from Bedouin where the road continually rises is 22km. For the Tours purposes and the official start the climb is 15.7km at an average of 8.8%. Those facts don't really paint the whole picture. The very early part is a reasonable rise out of the town, which is followed by 10km through the forest at an average of 9%. This area is notoriously hot,
as the heat is trapped by the trees and it is only when you reach the small village of Chalet Reynard that there is a brief respite (the finish today). Once you have survived the forest and made the turn at the village it's on to the much more famous white rock lunar landscape that dominates the last 6km to the tower at the top. This part is so exposed to the elements that nothing lives up there. It is quite cruel in another way as you keep seeing the tower but the road insists on turning away before bending back round. Finally at 1km to go you pass the memorial to Tom Simpson, the British cyclist who died in on the mountain during the Tour de France (13th July 1967). It's a tradition to leave something under a rock at the memorial.

To compete the story of my link to the mountain we need to go back to the etape du tour (sportive covering the exact route of a stage) which was a 110 mile ride, covering 3 (poss 4) much smaller climbs and culminating with the climb up Ventoux. I arrived in Bedouin after 95 miles in 5 hours, all smiles and thinking everything was alright with the world but in the back of mind suspected that I had pushed it to hard to get to this point m. Needless to say the mountain treated my lack of respect with disgust and spat me out. I suffered a torturous 3 hours on the climb before stopping to leave my cap at the memorial, bursting into tears and riding the rest of the climb to the summit. So good to be back!

The climb today was much more straightforward and we found a spot about 7km from today's finish, so in truth I hadn't done that much of the proper hard stuff but frankly who cares. The roadside on a mountain stage does attracts the slightly weirder members of the community and today was no exception. Our stretch went from the bottom bend we could see to about 200 metres until the road looped off to the right. I will try and describe some of the characters that we came across in our stretch.

Firstly the normal people, either by car or camper van/motorhome that have got on to the mountain without out riding up.
Next you have us, normal cyclists that have ridden up. These two groups are your base for the crowd.
Bottom bend, a bit far away but we could hear some music and there was definitely some dancing at one point.
Fat suit man - dressed in a fat suit and a chicken hat and generally got in the way of anyone or anything.
Pants, T-shirt and motorbike helmet man - so clearly was going to be a runner.
Mankini with wig 'down there' - had a helper to carry his water and correct the wig position
Man with permanent bottle of beer - he would chant 'Quintana, Quintana' at anyone who looked vaguely Colombian.
Australian flag runners - 2 blokes with Aussie flags like capes, one of whom was on in his honeymoon were only interested in running alongside the leaders.
The volleyball players - they appeared to knock a volleyball around for 3 hours
The helicopter starers - they stared at the helicopter that went over like it was a metal bird without feathers.
The top bend - music played, fancy dress, they made a tunnel for every cyclist who went up, they danced, they stopped every team car dependent on how long they wanted to sing at it. The FDJ team car, was stopped for a good couple of minutes as they sang the Thibaut Pinot song (just change the lyrics of 2 Unlimited's 'No Limits' hit) while gently tapping the car.

This merry band lived together for 3 hours, through the truncated caravan, procession of tour and team vehicles and finally some cyclists. One of things that has been most noticeable on this trip has been the lack of info on the race, especially when no phone coverage. Today, through the help of a motorhome tv we knew we had a break of 9 with a significant time gap, what we don't know is what happens next. Too many people huddled around the tele and no signal means we ended up with all sorts of rumours. As it turned out these rumours were less odd than what really happened.

For the record my view is that the crowd should never touch or run alongside the riders but I would never want to see any significant changes to how the race is watched now.

After probably 30 minutes to see the whole field come through it was time to head down. I
punctured again quiet early on and my new friends very kindly waited and we joined the mass of bikes, walkers and vehicles coming down. Nothing like the Arcalis but very very busy.  It was at this point that the weather closed in, mainly the anticipated winds. The mountain was clearly grumpy, had decided it was playing to ball to its summit, would allow us as far as the village but then it was going to blow us all off again. As I rode down I could see that the clouds had descended on the summit and the mountain had made it clear we could all sod off and it was going back to sleep.

Back in Bedouin we said our goodbyes and vowed to meet up again and I rode back to the hotel and somehow got lost again. Nice bath, caught with the Tour comings and goings, had the exact same dinner as yesterday and now my nightly routine of writing this blog.

And that was the long awaited Ventoux stage. Tomorrow is completely different as we have the time trial, which means all riders go off individually in reverse order to their current position...it goes on for about 7 hours, which is equivalent to a day at work if I could remember what one of those is.

Stat box
Miles covered - still 2060
Miles cycled - 161 1.5 HC's, cat 1, cat 3 and 3x cat 4
Cheese of the day - a cheeky Camembert, called Le Vieux Colombier and as the packaging says, it is Camembert with character and who am I to argue.
Tat of the day - none, nothing
Celebrity photo of the day - Tim meets Didi (see below).

Mankini man with wig straightener

Rider makes his way up 

Two Astana riders do the same 

Point and shoot and you will reach the mountain 

The official start

Tim meets Tour legend Didi the Devil

Fans sing at cars at the top bend