So I thought it would be fun to retrace the route taken by cyclists this year on the Tours de France and since we're close to the 20th stage - the 2nd last one, from Montelimar to Mt. Ventoux - we decided to drive 2/3 of the 167 km that the cyclists covered in 4 hours and 11 minutes. Now of course it's totally cheating doing this route by car, but we really tried to get a sense of what the cyclists were experiencing as they drove the course.
We picked up the route around an hour into the race in Nyons, which happened to have a market today. From this point to Bedoin, we had never driven the roads taken by the race and so were experiencing a whole new area. We knew what the racers would encounter once they hit the foot of Mt. Ventoux - grades up to 16% - but were not prepared for the fact that they had 5 other nasty climbs to make before they even tackled the last 16 km of the course.
The entire road is very hilly - we'd call them mountains in Ontario - and the landscape is bleak and forbidding. That doesn't stop the French from agricultural pursuits, like having one of the most intensive olive growing areas in France here and endless fields of lavender.
The were lots of reminders along the route, that the famous race had passed this way, like the banner in this small town or the personal messages written on the roads for the bikers.
At one point near Brante, the riders get tantalizingly close to Ventoux, with a good glimpse of the summit, only to realize that there's still 1 and 1/4 hours left in the race.
Because there's such fabulous TV coverage of the race, there are numerous displays along the route, some to be only appreciated from the helicopter camera and some by the cyclists themselves as they zoomed past. I'm not sure they really appreciate anything along the course, which is actually a shame.
One of the other things they probably never appreciate are the number of picturesque villages that that they pass by.
I'm fairly certain that they definitely appreciate the steep hills and twisting roads that make up the course. I'll tell you, I'm pretty sure Peter's little Peugeot was feeling the pain as we struggled to the summit of some of the inclines.
With less than a half hour to go in the race, the bikers finally begin the ascent to the top of Mt. Ventoux. Although it's high by Provencal standards, Ventoux, at 1912 metres is tame compared to other mountains in France. But this finale of the 20th stage is a kilometre climb and it's punishing. There are always cyclists doing this climb, but other than on race day, very few make it from the base to top without a few stops.
When you pass the tree line, Ventoux takes on a moonscape-like appearance. After deforestation for ship building in Toulon, the topsoil blew away and today's austere landscape is what is left.
About a kilometre from the summit there is a fairly poignant monument to mark the death of racer Tom Simpson in a past conquest of Ventoux. This should remind everybody, what a toll this climb takes on the body.
When you finally get to the tourist packed summit of Ventoux and cross the finish line, it almost seems a little anticlimatic. I'm guessing it didn't feel that way for the racers. It's actually a very small area in which to cram the 150 some odd cyclists in this race.
The telecommunication tower at the summit was nicely bedecked with a banner highlighting past winners coming into Ventoux. Mt. Ventoux is not always on the itinerary for the race, but when it is, it's certainly a highlight of the entire race.
Now here's the interesting thing. It took the cyclists about 3 hours and 10 minutes to drive the route that we took. It took us almost 3 hours. Granted, I did stop regularly to take pictures, but on some stretches, I could attain speeds that the bikes would never reach. So, if I wasn't impressed by the prowess of Tour de France cyclists, I sure am now!
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