The Way Is Shut

Although I tried to follow in the footsteps of Petrarch and climb Le Mont Ventoux from the Malaucene side, I met an impasse in the form of a closed road with several centimetres of snow on it. This surprised me, because even where I got to (Mont Serein, 1432m), it was still fairly warm and the sun was out, as usual. There was a snow plough sitting idle just before the barrier, but apparently the tops of the mountains aren't opened for a while yet.


The Way is Shut


Well, this is as far as I got...


The Chalet Liotard(!) near Mont Serein, at 1430m

But I did try! I'd managed the 15.2 km from Malaucene in 57'00, which wasn't too bad, and had I kept going at that rate, I would have got to the top in about 1h23'00, or thereabouts. I looked up the results of the Dauphine Libéré time trial up Mont Ventoux in 2004 (which was run from the Bedoin side, which is a bit longer and about another 70m vertical) and my virtual time would have placed me 94th in a field of 93 riders. Iban Mayo smashed the record and did it in 56'00(!), and even allowing for an extra 4-5 kilos of bike, clothing and gear, I think I would have been eliminated by several minutes. Well, Freire was eliminated that day too, so maybe I could be World Champion instead. Luckily I'm not a pro :-) Or even a virtual one.

The climb from Malaucene is probably slightly easier than that from Bedoin because the flat spots are scattered at convenient intervals throughout the climb. You start off at 7% for a km, then it's flat for half a km, then another km at 7% before you hit a 9% bit. It's OK until you get to km 9.5 and face four kilometres at 10%. That's really, really nasty, and there's actually a km where it's 12%. I was ridiculously overgeared with a 42x23, and was doing 11-12 km/h with my heart rate at 180 for well over 20 minutes. If I'd brought the Flandria down, I would have had a 39x25, which would make that bit relatively bearable.

Nevertheless, I was still keen on getting to the top and was a bit disappointed by the Route Barrée sign. I felt like a Balrog at the bridge of Khazad-Dûm, being told by Gandalf, "You cannot pass!" Bugger. Next time, Gadget, next time. Got some pics, which can be viewed below for a small fee, donated to my Nigerian bank account.

The whole ride was pretty cool, anyway. We all three (Hedwig, Rich et moi) started off in Orange on a cold and misty morning, fairly well rugged up. For the first time this week, I needed arm and leg warmers and even a thermal body warmer. I hasten to add that once the sun came out, these were completely unnecessary, even near the top of Ventoux!


Before setting out: Hedwig and Rich in downtown Orange.

We deviated off our course a bit somewhere near Caromb after we missed a turnoff. Rich took us up this tiny road and, although we were still headed towards Malaucene, we went a fair way north. This meant that instead of staying on the flat and having a gentle climb up to Malaucene, we ended up going over the Col du Suzette, which is about 5 km long and took us up to 400m. It didn't bother me too much but I don't think Hedwig was quite expecting it after doing a total of 100 km on the bike this year. Still, she made it OK, even though we had a couple more small climbs into Malaucene.


Halfway up the Col de Suzette, the sun came out. Rather fine, I must say.


The top of the Suzette, looking back down the valley. Mmmm...


Looking down the other side


It actually went up a bit more


Rich attacks coming into Malaucene!


Hedwig is not impressed


Rich and Hedwig outside the Cafe le Casino in Malaucene, where we parted ways...

We reached that point after 40 km and had un cafe in town, before parting. I dunno why, but they weren't too interested in doing Ventoux today. So I did it as planned, although I wanted to get to the top and descend the other side into Bedoin to make it a bit of a circuit. Instead I just had to turn around and go back down to Malaucene. Not a bad descent anyway, despite the fact that my front wheel is pitted and braking makes the whole front fork shudder. Time for a change, methinks.

I went back via Vaison-la-Romaine, Rasteau and Camaret like I did the other day, and quite enjoyed it. It's a nice area - so dry. Its climate is a bit like South Australia. I'm seriously considering moving here next year.

It's all happening in Avignon

Inside the walls of Avignon. Cool!

The Avignon Pont, where I wasn't "sur le"

Coming into Avignon over the bridge. No, not that one.

Downtown Villeneuve-lès-Avignon

Looking back over the fortress/keep/castle/shack from another vantage point

Some famous fortress/keep/castle/shack in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon

Sablet, not to be confused with Seguret. Also medieval, also on a hill.

Looking back over Seguret from a vantage point

Bustling Seguret. This was peak hour, I think.

Downtown Seguret

A tunnel in Seguret. Jeez I'm descriptive today.

The cool medieval hillside village of Seguret

Vaison-la-Romaine, with Ventoux in the background

Looking back down the vineyards from Rasteau

Mont Ventoux in the background (left)

Palais des Papes, Avignon

In the shadow of Mont Ventoux

Well here I am, some 50 km from the géant de Provence, Mont Ventoux. That means I am approximately in the vicinity of southern France and it's hot, damn hot. I was out in short sleeves today and no leg warmers, under clear blue skies, no wind, and 20+ degree temperatures. Argh. I guess the reward is all the greater after having suffered in Belgium for three weeks. I can't believe that just a week ago, I was frozen to the bone!

But it's not all about the weather.

I'll start at the beginning, approximately Tuesday morning, Belgian time. It was already a nice day when I left on the TGV, bound for Avignon, after having paid an exorbitant sum for the trip. But I knew it would be worth it, and even nicer down south! En route, not much happened except I was asked by three customs officers for my passport and whether I had any drugs. The thieving bastards - I didn't give them either, so they went away empty handed.

The only other thing that happened was that an English character, with an accent straight out of Aardman's creature comforts, was complaining loudly to his wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, unspecified, about the quality of the gourmet chicken sandwich that he had bought from the bar. "Call this gourmet, it's got four bits of chicken and a limp bit of lettuce!" And his wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, unspecified, laughed equally loudly and painfully. So he kept doing it, permutating the words but keeping the meaning the same. It was so bad and I was cringing, visibly. It seriously went on for 20 minutes and 34 seconds!

Then I braved the bar, and bought a non-gourmet ham sandwich and a tiny expresso for €5.50, which equates to about $AU9.50, and was thus outrageous. But I was hungry. Feed me Seymour, does it have to be human?

Scenery was nice but. Blue sky - not one cloud, hills, rivers meandering along, Chateaux parked on hillsides, old run down farming villages, vineyards, electricity power stations - all beautiful.

Anyway I got to Avignon and the blue skies didn't even vanish so it wasn't all a dream but it was reality, even more so than the best reality TV! Hedwig picked me up from the station and we cruised around Avignon, getting lost (as you do) before making our way back to Orange and her and Rich's very cool little apartment that overlooks a river and a street, not in that order. And it's only 50 km from Mont Ventoux.

I didn't realise how far south Avignon is until I looked at it on a map. It's only like 100 km from the coast and a couple of hours from Nice/Cannes. Even Italy and Spain ain't that fair away. I can understand why they chose to live here.

Today, being Wednesday, we went for a bit of a ride after finishing news. Blue skies were still extant, note, and it was that warm that I went out in a light jersey, shorts, arm warmers (which I took off) and no shoe covers! None of this 20 minutes to get dressed crapola. Finally.

We all three cruised on up to Châteauneuf du Pape, which is a rather spectacular wine village perched on a hillside and surrounded by wineries. They looked like Australian wineries, but a lot older, if you know what I mean. We didn't stop, which was a shame because I really wanted to try some peppermint flavoured burgundy.

Anyway, Hedwig turned around after 16.8 km, this being her second ride of the year, and Rich and I continued up to Entraigues, where we were to meet one of his clients (he's a dietician and trainer) at the Champion Supermarché. We were pre-warned that we were going to be riding with a junior girl whose dad thought she was pretty good, even though she got shelled in her first race of the year last weekend after about 25km. Admittedly, she does have to race with the elite women.

So the meeting was made, we exchanged bonjours and other pleasantries, and Rich informed the girl and her dad that I was Australien. Which is kind of like saying "he's from Barcelona." She was fairly short, not exactly built like a climber, had a frame that was way too big, cleats that were too far forward and a generally awful position on the bike. That's what Rich was for though.

We set off at a somewhat faster pace than before (now 28-29 km/h) and weaved along back roads around Cavaillon until we approached an ominous looking hill. It wasn't Ventoux, but we were at the southern foothills of the géant, and I was half thinking we were going to climb it. Not that I would have minded.

We turned onto a tiny road that went uphill fast, and Rich said "now we're going up Mont Ventoux". I actually believed him, but he was joking. It was still a really cool little climb on small, bumpy, narrow roads and I thought it might be the back way up. As we started climbing, the junior prodigy just lit it up and we were doing 18-20 km/h up what I would consider a fairly steep grade. Her fit looking dad was dropped pretty quickly and Rich followed suit soon after, leaving me in the somewhat awkward position of making sure she didn't do a Tom Simpson and expire on the mountain. Hell, I was having enough trouble staying with her. I'm reasonably fit at the moment and I was sitting on 160+ heart rate, but making sure I stayed half a wheel behind her because I wasn't sure what I was meant to be doing.

After a few km, we got to a flatter part, and she sat up and waited for her pa and Rich, who were both breathing fairly heavily. It turned out we were nearly at the top, as it was only a small climb, but I was still seriously impressed at her power, especially given the aforementioned bike setup.

We descended into one of those fantastic medieval villages that are built into the sides of hills in Provence, and I was cursing myself for not bringing a camera. I will next time. Then it was straight up another, even nastier climb, and the girl pounded up it, only to be passed by her dad who put in this huge attack about halfway. But I think she's been riding with him before, because she waited about 200m, then clicked up a gear and mowed him down, passing him without the slightest glance, intent on reaching the top. She hammered all the way and I was at 167 by the time we hit the summit, even more impressed now.

On the third or fourth climb she kind of ran out of gas, and me sitting on 140 was even too much. Her dad flew past us both again and this time I gave up at trying to ride steadily, and cranked it up to 160 again to the top. The girl did manage to get her dad, which was good, but I detected that she needs a bit more endurance because it's no good being able to handle the climbs in the first 40 km if you can't do the last 40. Anyway, there's a lot of potential there. I was in a better position to judge than Rich, because he was the first one dropped on each climb, having done 200 km for the year to date before today's ride, which got him up to 300 km.

The rest of the ride was good, because it was mostly downhill and we saw lots more awesome Provence scenery. Rich gave the girl a rundown of what to do vis a vis training and stuff - a few more 70 km rides like today wouldn't be bad! Then we went back to Orange via Carpentras and Châteauneuf du Pape, and Rich was badly in need of a peppermint flavoured restorative of some sort. But we didn't dally and managed to make it home before dark, with 110 km up on the clock and a fair bit of climbing.

So now it's late.

The corner has been turned

In the weather stakes, of course. What else occupies every third moment of my waking hours? Last week was more than bearable, after a cod ordinary Tuesday. Today (note: Sunday) was lovely and sunny, with a moderate southwest wind blowing. And next week we'll be scaling the dizzy heights of 15 degrees celsius! Quelle phwoar!

Strangely enough, I won't be here to experience it as I have put my Contingency Plan A into action. That involves hopping on a train on Tuesday and going to Orange, near Avignon in the South of Fworce, to visit Hedwig and Rich for a spot of work, sun, and possibly a winery. Probably not in that order either. Hopefully we'll get in a bit of Black Stump Bordeaux, which, to quote Monty Python's "Australian Table Wines" sketch "is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy."

Furthermore: "Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles of this and you're really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour."

After that, meine liebe schwester Lucy is coming to Visit at Easter, so that should be rather fun. She's got a real job now in Londres, and has a posh email address. Well, it's posher than mine.

Crikey, then Jon Devich is coming to stay for the classics in April. It's all happening.

Training reportage

As there has been no reason to interrupt my riding too much this week (well, apart from Paris-Nice and stuff), I have taken full advantage. Getting in the miles is the aim of the game at this stage of the proceedings, and that has been achieved on my creaky bike. I worked out what the creak is today and it was easily fixed, otherwise I'd be up the creak.

For the first time this year, we (being the Schelde bunch) did the Sunday mountain parcours, which is a bit easier than the Saturday one which we haven't started yet anyway. We did the Trap Op in just over 6 minutes, a far cry from the 5'20s we were doing last year. But I am sure it will get faster. The wind was from the west again so by the finish, we were down to eight riders, just like Saturday. My sprint is almost nonexistent at the moment, but it'll come back to its merely awful level soon enough.

It's still a bit cold to be going really quick, but the sun and plus zero temperatures have definitely made a difference to the speed. I must dust off the Flandria soon...

On a positive note

It has been several degrees above zero for the last few days, and I think we've turned the corner at last. On a negative note, it's been wet, which equals a lot of mud on person + bike as well as a lot of cold when your appendages get wet. I've managed to solve the cold feet problem with a "pro tip" of wrapping cling wrap around my shoes, underneath my shoe covers. Unfortunately, it's difficult to do that on my hands and I realised toward that even two pairs of gloves does nothing to stop your hands getting cold when they get wet. I think I'll buy some disposable plastic gloves...

Today I went with a couple of young Belgians after we left the Schelde, and we did a loop from Oudenaarde - Zottegem via the Leberg and Berendries, then back home to Gent. I was marvelling at the resilience of one of the guy's tyres, because he was riding on the edge of the road through all the sand, rocks, dirt, mud, slush, etc. and hadn't punctured. Approx. five minutes later, his front tyre went flat.

Surprisingly, he didn't seem to have much of a clue about changing a tyre, so the two of us helped with words of encouragement. The wind was blowing strongly and it was too cold to take our gloves off and actually lend a hand. Anyway, he eventually forced the tube in and managed to completely bend the valve while pumping it up.

God it was cold when we got going again, and going over the cobbles just before the Leberg was rather painful. But my hands got worse after the Berendries, where it's always a couple of degrees cooler I reckon. They felt like they were cracking every time I moved my fingers or went over a bump. At least it had stopped raining. As we got closer to Gent, it warmed up a tad, but it was still quite hard to turn my key in the lock once I finally got home.

Bugger, gotta do the live of Paris-Nice. Cold there too.

Yellow lenses

I invested in a pair of peril sensitive sunglasses, which come with three types of lenses: clear, yellow and dark. The yellow ones are great because they give you the false impression that it's actually a lot brighter than it is. I have also acquired a thick puffy jacket from the Sunderland clan, who keep me in winter clothing while I'm here. It's extremely warm and somewhat better than my wholly holey jumper.

Saw the sun for 15 seconds on Thursday. Really. That was better than Tuesday or Wednesday. Friday (today) was better in the morning in that it was actually dry, but by 3pm it started snowing and it's coming down pretty hard now at 5:30. But they predict 5 degrees tomorrow - hoho, I'll believe that when I see it.

Don Gamble (now married to his Belgian fiancee) and I have been exchanging info on how to keep warm. He reckons long thermal underwear is the go. Also Roeckl winter gloves. My hands are still getting cold now, even with two pairs of gloves. Met a Belgian called Christof who spoke English with a kiwi accent, 'cos he lived in Wellington for so long. He didn't even have shoe covers on. Argh!!

A lady in the laundromat said to me today (roughly): "Het blijft slecht weer in de hele wereld." Not in Australia, lady!

It occurred to me that ABBA sprang to fame by winning the Eurovision Song Contest, but arguably no other band has done so since. Not even Sergio and the Ladies, which didn't win in 2002 anyway. Jeez, it's been nearly three years since that campaign.

Hah!

The official temperature recorded in Gent at 1pm today was -1.8 degrees. I thought it was a tad chilly. Still, I didn't get snowed on so that was ok. In fact, the path along the Schelde was pretty good. I had a cunning plan today, seeing as the wind was from the south: Ride 60 km south, turn around and come back with the tailwind. It took a stroke of genius to come up with that one.

The wind was, as I expected, an utter bastard going out. 27.5 km/h average with a heart rate of 145-150 all the time. My face and eyes were frozen and of course to take a drink of water, I had to unscrew the top of the bidon, slosh the ice around a bit and have a swig of oh-so-refreshing iced water. Why doesn't it do that in summer?

I think I got to somewhere near Tournai before I made the U-turn...just as it started to snow a bit. But that didn't last long and the ride back was accomplished in 1:41, at pretty much the same heart rate. I was a bit cold coming back though. I hate how you can't close your fingers properly when you get cold.

I saw exaclty one other rider out today: Jules, who was on his early morning constitutional.

I have also unblocked the drain successfully, so now the water actually goes somewhere other than down the back of the sink cupboard.

Now to eat for the rest of the afternoon.

Doug and Dinsdag

It's Tuesday so it must be snowing, and I think I can ditch my plans for a 150 km ride today. A bit of a contrast to yesterday, when it was calm, blue skies and sunny, although temperatures were several degrees below zero in the morning. Oh well, might get out in a little while, but there ain't much in the way of sunshine predicted for today.

I have been beavering away for the last two weeks with as much riding as I can bear in the cold without going too hard yet. I've been finding that either a) I'm really unfit or b) riding in zero degrees knocks about 3 km/h off my average speed for the same heartrate. I suppose it's just my body trying to keep itself warm, and raising my metabolism to do so. I've been laying waste to the fridge/cupboard/secret hiding places too. While I was away over Christmas etc., there appear to have been shocking depredations in the beer cellar, so I have been slowly restocking and not drinking any.

At least the snow didn't get in the way of Het Volk and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne this year, and we saw two pretty tough races. Nick Nuyens' solo in the last 15 km of Het Volk was very fine to watch, especially as the peloton was doing its utmost to get him back. And George's win on Sunday was nice too - he's as strong as an ox, that guy, and finally got in the right move.

To other matters of worldly import. I've had a blocked ear since I got here, which appears to be a minor nasal infection. So the good doctor (the same one that sent me to hospital last year) set me up with some sofrasolone and sinutabs and it's already improving. Better than a lung embolism, we chuckled. The other matter of worldly import is that my sink drain is fairly blocked. But I have the technology and rubber gloves to unblock it.

My Surround_Sound system has been so good that I've only turned on the TV twice since I got here, and that was only to watch Het Volk and KBK. Yes, it's that good. No more TMF/JIM/MTV for me (I hope). It's such an incredible waste of time too, and I want to try to stick with my new work schedule of getting up at around 6, doing a couple of hours, going for a ride, coming back to finish off news, then having the afternoon free. This means going to bed by 10pm, which has not been too difficult thus far. We shall see how long it lasts...

I went to the bank yesterday to pay me rent for the first time since October, and the bank teller actually recognised me and said "fantastisch" when I told him I wanted to pay it in Flemish. I then realised I didn't have any Flemish on me, so I had to be content with €euros. Nevertheless, it was a small victory and I'm gradually learning to string more than two words together at a time in the local lingo. But I managed to write about 15,000 words of gibberish cycling copy in English over the weekend, so there's still a way to go.

I had thought of many more interesting things to write but my brain is now empty and I need to unblock the drain.