When i went onto my first solo cycle trip some years ago (from germany to marseille, france), my coworkers joked that i should ride mont ventoux. I had no idea what mont ventoux was, but read it up. On that trip i happened to cycle around this mythical mountain, looked awesome, but i never seriously considered going up ever.

On two more cycle trips i cycled around mont ventoux on different routes, and it always looked just so cool from afar. This trip i wanted to hit mont ventoux, but i got sick basically on the western foot of it. I rode in recovery mode east past it, through the valley, looked awesome again. I then continued towards the high alps but eventually decided to turn around because of the weather forecast, back south into the prealps of provence.

And today i actually got to ride it. I rode it from Sault, because that’s where i was coming from, which i guess is not what the OG’s do or consider “riding mont ventoux”, but cycle tourers are aloud to do that, haha.

Lots of roadies going up there. And it lived up to its name, it was real windy. In the morning at the bottom of the climb one roadie told me that it might be too dangerous to ride to the summit today but thankfully the wind chilled out a bit as i was going up, and also the cloud that had covered the top went away.

Picture is bit below the top on the descend to Malaucene. That glider plane was going nuts, that stuff looks absolutely crazy.

  • Kirca@lemmy.world
    7·
    4 months ago

    Ride looks amazing, and that tarmac looks absolutely splendid to ride. Definitely one to add to the dream Europe trip! Hope you’re having a blast out there!

    • AchtungDrempels@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      4 months ago

      I am still having a blast, but i am also starting to look forward to get back home again. Guess in ten days / two weeks i’ll be home. But there’s still some good stuff coming up for me and i am in crazy good shape right now, having been cycling mountains basically every day for two months now, that makes it a lot of fun.

    • AchtungDrempels@lemmy.worldOP
      9·
      4 months ago

      They did not think i was actually going to ride mont ventoux back then, and i wasn’t, they just knew it from tour de france. At that point i had never ridden any mountain and did not plan to do so either. It was on that trip though that i started to be interested in cycling mountains.

      Maybe it doesn’t translate, just an inside joke with my coworkers.