Thursday 14th July: Blue Skies, very. very cold 2°C to 15°C
Malaucene: Mountain stage Tour de France, Montpellier to Mont Ventoux (shortened to Chalet Reynard)
Breakafast roadside Mont Serein
What a fabulous day Bastille day on Stage 12 of the Tour de France on Mont Ventoux. All day was a highlight. Climbing Mont Ventoux twice in gale force winds - once up and down from Mont Serein to Chalet Reynard and then back from Chalet Reynard to Mont Serein. And watching the Tour de France stage on Mont Ventoux at Chalet Reynard, 6k from the top of Mont Ventoux after the Tour de France was shortened by 6k due to high winds.
We're up early and out the door with a packed breakfast and lunch ready for an exciting day on Mont Ventoux at 1912m. From our surveillance on the top of the mountain yesterday, our plan was to have breakfast at the car park at Mont Serein at 8am, then walk up the 6k to the summit and wait all day until 3.30pm when the caravan of advertisers came through, then mother one and a half hours for the actual race, scheduled for 5pm.
6k to walk to Mont Ventoux
130kph winds, can't go to ladies
Peeping for Graham and Jenny
Tom Simpson Memorial 1967
Mont Ventoux in sweeping clouds
Lunch at Chalet Reynard
New Finish Chalet Reynard
Lunch on a ledge waiting for TdeF
New cycling jersey and hundreds of bikes propped against wall
Waiting at 400m from finish
Jenny and Graham, Mont Ventoux
The Caravan - Skoda
Caravan dolly girls throw stuff
Gendarmerie controls crowds
First up Mont Ventoux
Blue skies and Tour de France
Christopher Froome in trouble
Jan watching Christopher Froome
All went well in the beginning. Breakfast of muesli and yoghurt sitting by the side of the road after grabbing a car park was chilly, and a hot cup of coffee Jetboiled coffee was welcome. At 8.30am, after walking just 1k towards the summit with dozens of other people, we're stopped by an official car informing us that the Tour de France finish is not at the top of Mont Ventoux, but 6k short of the summit on the other side at Chalet Reynard due to gale force winds of 100kph and 2°C at the top of the mountain. That would mean a 24k walk for the day he tells us - 6k to the top, 6k down the other side to Chalet Reynard making 12k, then the whole thing in reverse after the race. Most people turn back but after a quick pow wow, we decide to do continue. After all we've just completed a 320k hike so we all should be fit enough!
There were a few hardy walkers around us. But as we walked up, the wind grew stronger and it got colder. Once at the top, an official told Graham that the winds were 104kph, and my thermometer registered 3°C. It was hard to stop ourselves from being blown around, or worse - away, but at least there were by now, many other souls doing the same walk. Once over the top, it was still windy for 2k down the other side, and all the rental toilets and barriers had blown over. We pas the memorial to British rider Tom Simpson who died in the 1967 Tour de France on Mont Ventoux from a combination of amphetamines and alcohol. Finally we get below the air flow swirling around the mountain top, and could see hundreds of the tell-tale camper vans parked in fields below us near the 10 house village of Chalet Reynard.
It's 11.30 am, after 3hrs of walking, when we reach a sheltered spot behind some pine trees to have a hot cup of tea and work out our new strategy. The gale force winds at 1400 metres are not so strong, but still as bad as a howling westerly in Brisbane in August. I sit and mind the bags while Ian, Graham and Jenny check out the scene. There's thousands of people milling around, hundreds of gendarmerie, and dozens of workers we-erecting barriers for the new finish line, the exact spot not being obvious just now. Graham and Jenny return after finding a spot on the hill side about 1k further down so we pack up our gear and down to the "400m to go" sign, and weave our way through a few chalets and pine trees to get to a great spot just 2 metres overlooking the barriers.
Lunch of hot bread, cheese, tomato, butter and a rose we'd carried up in a plastic milk bottle. Very relaxing. There's another 2hrs to wait for the caravan - a motorcade of advertisers chucking collectible stuff off the back of their vans. The time passes quickly just sitting and watching the antics of people all around us, and Ian and I walk back to the Tour de France shop, where Graham has found a red black and white cycling shirt emblazoned with Mont Ventoux. I find one just my size - my only souvenir for the trip.
The right on time, the caravan appears. Ian manages to catch a small packet of lollies and I get 2 yellow LCL caps and that's it - not a big haul compared to other years. Another hour, and at 5pm, the buzzing helicopters and roaring motorbikes indicate the first riders are approaching. In no time flat, the first 3 riders whiz past at a speed i'd probably do downhill!! De Gent, Martin and ??, no big names are the leaders, followed by Richie Port the Christopher Froome in the Maillot jeune appears and right before our eyes, hops off his bike, swaps it for a new bike on the team car, and is off again in 10 seconds. Apparently there's been an altercation with a camera crew on a motorbike, and because his team car was trapped further behind, he'd had to swap for an "all purpose" emergency bike that didn't suit. In 15 minutes, most of the riders are through and it's time to go. Just amazing how hundreds of thousands of people watch the Tour de France for a just a 15 minute event.
Climbing back through the pine trees to the finish line, there's a people jam. We can't get through and the gendarmerie are holding us back until the presentation is over and all the team buses and bikes have left to go back up the mountain. We stand for an hour trapped, until at last, a group of people force a turn around, and a line of people with us tagged on the end, walk back through the crowds, jump a wall, down a gully and up to the other side behind the small grandstand.
By now it's after 6pm as we start the long walk back over Mont Ventoux and down the other side to our parked car at Mont Serein. We're not alone as we battle the ever increasing winds walking uphill, and all of us are trying to hitch-hike a lift back but the vans and cars are all full. The fast swirling clouds at the top is not a good sign, and 2k from the top, it's nasty, with people fling over and hanging on to poles. Ian and I manage to grab each other and get to the top, where we see a camper van flipped on its side. It's a wonder there weren't more. Jenny and Graham are 5 minutes behind and are lucky to get a lift in a red cross emergency vehicle picking up people struggling in the high winds.
It's 8.40pm, when Ian and I get to the car park, and we're glad Graham and Jenny are already there. We had visions of sitting in the cold waiting an hour for them to get down off the mountain. A thirty minute drive back to our apartment, scrambled eggs on toast for dinner, then bed at 11pm after a memorable day
Agony and ecstasy - Tour de France
Chaos at end of Tour de France
Beautiful Provence
Still 1k to top of Mont Ventoux
130kph winds, crawling home