A big green monster emerges out of his cave as the first morning light glints off the dewy grass... WAIT thats me getting out of the tent at an insanely early hour in the morning!
So as where was i... yes a super early start would normally spell disaster for me as i am not a morning guy even on a good day, however today was different. There was definately excitement in the air... and some other dodgey smells too when you put 11 guys together in close proximity your bound to make some kind of flammable gases. After attacking a bit of breakfast and prepping the bike for todays outing i headed off to the start village in search of a coffee to kick start the machine! Half an hour later i had managed to find some of the other lads and was on my way to the start. This was where the coffee came in handy! We had spoken about how there were bound to be some idiots who didnt really know how to handly a bike in amongst the 10,000 odd starters but i didnt quite realise how dodgey some people really were... in the kilometre or so between my coffee stop and finding our starting pen i saw at least three crashes! We hadnt even started the race and there were guys hitting the deck! Oh dear.
- Côte de Citelle 5,2 km at 3,9 %
-Col d'Ey 6,3 km at 5 %
-Col de Fontaube 4,7 km at 4,3 %
-Col de Notre-Dame des Abeilles 7,8 km at 4 %
-Mont Ventoux par Bédoin 21,2 km at 7,6 %
Anyway, i managed to make it to our starting pen without incident, numbers 2200-2600 or something like that, and waited for the off.
5,4,3,2,1... GOOOO! 10 minutes later we clip in and start to roll forward!
To catch up on lost time, 3 of us took off and started our 3up time trial for the day. By the top of the first small col we must have already passed nearly a thousand people but there was still a long way to go and large gaps started appearing between one group and the next. So we got into the routine of towing a large group of riders unwilling to even pull through once and then attacking then (and dropping them i should add!) on each little climb we could find.
There was one depressing stretch of road in a valley with a headwind where we honestly must have had at least 200 riders strung out in a long line behind us... nobody even tried to come help us on the front! We soon droppped them though as we hit the second climb of the day!
After a good 60odd kilometres we caught up with Matthieu Jeannès and Benoit Jouanigot from our group who had managed to jump fence at the start and get off in the top 600, cheeky bastads! (Matthieu had managed to come unstuck and hit the deck as a rider pulled over infront of him on one of the climbs).
So now we had two more riders to add to our chaingang. After about 120/130km we got tired off pulling for all the other riders and eased off deciding just to ride on the hills. In the group i managed to find some friendly english faces including Henry Furniss, rides for WindyMilla in the UK, and also Yanto Barker (premier calendar rider in the UK for Le Col Colnago http://www.lecol.net/). As the k's clicked by, we were getting nearer and nearer to the leg breaker for the day... the final leg of the race up Mont Ventoux. You could actually see it towering above you after about 130kms but we didnt hit the bottom slopes until about 150km in.
The bottom started well as a few of us rode away from the group we were in however i started to pay for our time trial through out the day as the slopes veered upwards. This is where the torture started! I wasnt in a good state and by now the sun was properly beating down, between 35-40degrees apparently on the climb. I had also run out of water after deciding now to stop at the feed station at the bottom of the climb. A good several kms in and i realised i was in a bit of trouble as all the guys i had passed in the last 10odd kms started to crawl past me again.
I decided to stop at one of the caravans parked on the road which happened to have a local brittany number plate, hoping they would recognise the Brest kit, and ask for some water. I dont know who the guy was but he saved my day there!! Proper legend, as he quickly ran into his caravan and whipped out an ice cold big 1.5litre bottle of water... "can i keep it?", "of course, good luck Bic2000!" Get in. i downed the bottle in about two gulps and within minutes i felt fresh again! Another few kms up the road and i stopped for the last time to fill up my bottles at the feed station just before the road opens up into a desert on to of the mountain.
Feeling good now, i decided to put the hammer down and see if i could catch all the people who had passed me when i was hanging out of my arse! And one by one i passed everyone, the last two of which were Yanto Barker who i passed in the last 2km and also Florian Le Corre from our group who had passed me and left me for dead after about 4or5km of the climb. I told him to stick behind me as i was on a mission but i dropped him in the last km as the road kicked up again.
200m to go, swing a steep right hand turn hairpin, kick up over the top ... game over. "FINISH". Man i was gald to see that sign!
So that was my first experience of the Mont Ventoux and it was HARD! Probably the hardest mountain i had done all week. But a wicked climb nonetheless.
5 hours 45 minutes 42 seconds. My time for the day. A fair way off the winner Dimitri Champions time of 5hr 09mins but not too bad seeing as i never even saw the front of the race. That placed me 105th over the line and 74th on actual time rankings given the delay between the real start and when my group started. Shame i couldn't get in the top 100 but was still a really good day out.
Jean-Marc Bideau from our group managed 2nd behind his team mate Champion so at least we had a rider on the podium too! A certain Cedric Vasseur just beat me to the line 14seconds ahead and took 102nd.
An awesome day on the bike but i was sure glad to get to the top of the Ventoux!
There were 7396 finishers from a near 10,000 starters with the last man coming in at 11hrs 05mins 38seconds, with some riders taking up to 4hrs to get up the Ventoux... i did 1h30 with 2 stops. That must have been torture!!
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