Subject:
Fabled Climbs - Mont Ventoux
Sometimes
things people say or plans we don’t fulfill stick in our craw and eat away at us,
like a splinter that hasn’t been fully extracted from a finger. They’re often
silly things, trivial things, which in the whole scheme of life aren’t terribly
important. I kept telling myself this while on the long and tiring drive from
Eygliers to the tiny village of Mazan, 11 kilometres from the foot of Mont
Ventoux.
Two months earlier, if
someone had asked me if I would have been happy to ride up Mont Ventoux just
once, I would have said an emphatic, “Yes, of course.” Yet the fact remained
that I’d only climbed it from two of its three alternative routes, a seemingly
unfinished proposition, made all the more hollow by my “mate” Lore’s indiscreet
remarks the last time I stood on the mountain’s summit. It might have been good
enough for Meat Loaf, but to me, two out of three just didn’t cut it.
So here we were, back
beneath the multi-antennaed peak that for centuries has stood majestically
above northern Provence. Like most of the villages dotted around it, Mazan is
not overly large, but there’s a richness and sense of history about it.
Surrounded by vineyards and rolling hills, many of its buildings and houses
hark back to the 19th century and beyond. It was a fortified walled city during
the Middle Ages, and today, visitors can still enter through its original
gates.
At our night’s
accommodation, after being greeted by our host’s obligatory smile, the first
thing we noticed was the collection of striking paintings adorning the walls.
Each one, in its unique way, captured the surrounding landscape’s rich rustic
tones. Finally, as if things couldn’t get any better, there outside the window
of our first floor room was an absolutely stunning view of Mont Ventoux in the
distance.
Virtually decimated,
after many of its inhabitants were violently put to death, Bédoin lies at the
foot of the great Mont. In one of its streets stands a memorial marking the
site where the guillotine, a chilling symbol of the French Revolution, once
stood. Otherwise, there’s little reminder of the persecution and destruction
that swept through the village a little more than 200 years ago.
Well protected from the
lashing Mistral wind, Bédoin has a distinctly Mediterranean feel about it.
Surrounded by forest on one side and vineyards on the other, it has become a
popular destination for travellers, among them hikers and, of course, cyclists.
Though it is the most difficult of the three climbs, Bédoin offers the best
approach up the mountain, with views of the summit—if you’re keen to look—for
much of the way.
 |
| Le Chalet Reynard |
A little like Sault,
the ride is clearly divided into two halves, but this time the first half is
just as unrelenting as the second. There are no switch- backs, no flat spots,
just an incessant gradient that hovers between 6-8%. Until the intersection at
Le Chalet Reynard, the only compensation is the filtered shade afforded by the
verdant beech forest. As you climb, the beech becomes scarce, replaced by
introduced plantings of cedar, which in turn shade into the barren white scree
slope that gives the mountain its snow- covered appearance.
Of all the days to
climb Ventoux, France’s most revered mountain, it was serendipitously July 14,
France’s national day, patriotically known as Bastille Day. What Anzac Day is
to most Australians and Independence Day is to Americans, so Bastille Day is to
the French. The Bastille was a rather grim old prison renowned for
incarcerating political prisoners whose writings opposed the royalist
government.
Rather ironically,
there were only seven inmates still locked up in the Bastille at the time of
its storming in the revolution—July 14, 1789—none of whom held any political
significance whatsoever. Sources suggest that one of them was a suspected
murderer, another two were noblemen being held for immoral behaviour, and the
remaining four were supposedly forgers. Hardly worth a full-frontal assault, in
my opinion. Nevertheless, its capture, carried out by little more than an
enraged and lawless mob, became a symbol of a modern nation’s uprising against
the archaic laws imposed by feudalism and the power of the Roman Catholic
Church.
In reality, the
storming of the Bastille was not the first event of the French Revolution. The
nobility had by now refused to pay taxes to King Louis XVI. Secondly, almost a
month earlier, National Assembly members, forced to hold their meeting on an
indoor tennis court, pledged a collective oath to keep reassembling until a new
constitution was created. This event became immortalised in Jacques-Louis
David’s famous painting The Oath of the
Tennis Court. Ironically, the painting was never actually finished,
primarily due to the fact that too many of the men depicted in it became
suspects in the tumultuous events of the revolution that followed.
Less than two months
after the symbolic attack on the Bastille fortress, the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen was officially proclaimed. From this point
forward, France launched headlong into revolution, which effectively didn’t end
until the beginning of Napoleon’s dictatorial reign 10 years later.
Though the declaration
of people’s rights was not truly upheld—after all, a great many innocent people
suffered at the hands of the revolutionaries— what better way to begin France’s
national day than by riding up its most spiritual mountain? Few disagreed, as
there were literally hundreds of cars and cyclists travelling up and down all
morning, and, no doubt, well into the afternoon. It was as if all roads led to
Ventoux—cyclists were out in force along the myriad of routes linking the
provincial villages that surround it. I could only comment on the ascent from
Bédoin, but judging from the number of riders at the summit, the roads from
Sault and Malaucène were just as busy.
 |
| The summit of Mont Ventoux |
Passing scores of
French tricolour flags along the way, the ride from Mazan to Bédoin took less than
half an hour. Though it was still only around 8.30 am, the heat was already
beginning to bounce off the bitumen. Both sides of the road were lined with
cars and people taking photographs of their loved ones, who, like their bikes,
were a hodge-podge of shapes and sizes. It was a cavalcade of vélos slowly churning its way up the
mountain. Despite the hot white rock which made the final 6 kilometres feel
like an oven, it was a wonderful feeling to be back riding along the moon-like
surface once more. Time passed quickly and I was more than happy to have
reached the summit in less than two hours. Thanks largely to the carnival-type
atmosphere, it turned out to be an even more enjoyable and memorable experience
than the last time I’d stood on the exact same spot.
Books by Mark Krieger:
‘High Spain Drifter’ is available on Amazon , Barnes and Noble, Booktopia and other online bookstores.
Both books are also available at local bookshops on the Mornington Peninsula: @ Rosebud Bookbarn and @ La Brocante
“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I
do not despair for the future of the human race.” H. G.
Wells
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