June 16, 2011

We awake to hot sunshine again – this time the thermometer in the village tells us it is 30 degrees at 10 am – phew!

A croissant, a pain aux chocolat and a coffee each and we’re ready to go.  We have a short distance on the flat and then start the first climb of the day.  The Col de Soubeyrand at 994 metres is not the biggest of climbs, but given that it is the first of five today, it is big enough.  The Col de Peyruegue (820 metres),  la Rochette (739 metres), the Col de Aulan (845 metres), followed by another climb into the village of Sault finds us pretty weary at the end of the day.

We eat at the Pizza van before finding the camp-site in Sault, not wanting to miss out on food for the second night running. 

Sault is to be our ‘base camp’ for our assault on Mont Ventoux, a long-held ambition of mine.  We’re going to take a day off to recover our strength before tackling the climb to 1920 metres on Saturday (without the luggage I hasten to add).   Mont Ventoux is geographically part of the Alps, but stands alone and is one of the most gruelling climbs in the Tour de France; it has featured 14 times in the race, most recently in 2009.  Venteux means ‘windy’ in French and winds of 320 km/hr have been recorded at the top of the mountain, average winds of 90 km/hr blow 240 days of the year.  It achieved notoriety when British cyclist, Tom Simpson, died during the climb in 1967.  Whether we reach the top depends on a number of factors, not just our cycling fitness, but also the weather and the wind; at times the route is closed to cyclists for safety reasons.  So we’ll see what Saturday brings.