Today, we would begin the final phase of Steve’s epic visit to France. We drove to Avignon which is famous for their Bridge if you are familiar with the french song! By the Way, the Bridge doesn’t go anywhere. It originally spanned across the Rhone river, but mostly washed away by floods many centuries ago. There are only 4 or 5 of the original spans remaining, but ends about a quarter of the way across the river now.
On the way to Avignon, we did stop to visit another famous bridge. The famous Pont du Gard which is an ancient Roman aqueduct that was built over the Gard River to provide water to the town of Nimes. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site and most people probably have seen a photo of. It was built about 2000 years ago, but still stands to this day. The Romans may have been a pretty hedonistic society, but they had some fine engineers! I was surprised about a few things at the aqueduct. First, you can actually walk across it! And second, most people who were there were going to swim in the river, not sight see. There must have been about a thousand people swimming, tanning, and just hanging out in general there. It was pretty hot that day, so it was pretty tempting, but we did not have swim suits with us.
Afterward, back in Avignon, Steve and I found a Pub for dinner. Had a nice dinner and a craft beer. Not bad. Steve would need the calories. Tomorrow would be his ascent of Mont Ventoux, the most difficult of the climbs he would attempt in my opinion.
Steve would have the advantage of starting the ride up Mont Ventoux in the morning when the weather would be cooler. When I did this ride 4 years ago, I rode it in the late afternoon when the temperature was about 100 degrees F. Not a great decision on my part. But, once again, I would have Steve ride this beast of a mountain from a different route that would be slightly more difficult than the side I rode. I did not tell Steve about this, yet again! We drove out to Bedoin where the ride would begin. Mont Ventoux is a mountain that stands alone so you can see it from a long way away as you drive there, and see the giant antenna structure at the top as well. We picked a good starting point for Steve’s ride, but again, I could not drive the car along the initial part of the route due to a street market going on that day. So I drove around trying to negotiate my way onto the route while Steve had a pretty straight forward way out of town. We were both successful and I soon took my place behind Steve (as usual) and paced him up the road. I had developed a system of staying behind Steve until a car would come up from behind. Not wanting to upset a trailing car since I was only going around 10-12 miles an hour, I would pull around Steve and then pull over up the road to wait for Steve to catch up again and then do the whole thing over again until another car would come up from behind. It actually was a nice break from watching Steve’s backsidel all day!
Steve rode through the forested portion of the ride and then entered into the open “moonscape” part of the mountain that you can see from such along way away (along with the antenna). The good part of this part of the ride is that you can see the end of the ride, plus see some amazing views too. Seeing the summit of a ride is always great for finding the energy to get to the top of a climb. This was certainly the case and Steve finished in fine fashion, although he was passed by this younger woman who trailed him for the entire ride until the last few kilometers. No shame though, She was young, fit and a strong rider in her own right. She gave Steve a “high five” at the summit since she also recognized a good rider when she saw one!
Just like the Col de la Croix de Fer, after a rest and photos, Steve continued over the top to ride down the back side of the mountain to Malaucene which was the town I started from years ago. For this reason, I knew where to park to meet Steve and get him sorted out after the ride. Then, it was on to find some food and to find a shop where Steve could buy a souvineer jersey to remember his epic ride!
