Terrifying Mont Ventoux Ready To Create The Unexpected Again In Tour De France

The decades pass, generations of Tour de France cyclists travel and go, but immoderate gruesome things ne'er change. On Tuesday, nan survivors of 1 of nan craziest, fastest Tours ever, a title pinch moreover little respite than usual, will do arsenic their predecessors person done each fewer years since 1951: they will crest a emergence successful nan road, and spot Mont Ventoux connected nan horizon. A sinking successful nan bosom will travel nan dull ache successful nan legs: we’re disconnected to nan Bald Mountain erstwhile again.

The men of nan Tour astir apt won’t beryllium thankful for mini mercies, but they should be. Last clip nan Tour visited, successful 2021, though nan inheritance script was nan aforesaid – Tadej Pogacar had smashed nan title to bits connected nan first superior climb and was group adjacent for triumph – nan organisers cruelly made them spell complete nan 1,910m acme twice, successful 2 different ways. Wout van Aert mightiness callback that pinch a wry smile: nan Belgian was successful his premier backmost past and he won retired of a breakaway.

The clip earlier that, successful 2016, nan chaos connected nan upland was specified that nan man who was Pogifying nan title that year, Chris Froome, ran portion of nan measurement to nan finish, which had been moved disconnected nan acme owed to precocious winds. Froome mightiness callback that utterly freakish section pinch a wry grin from his location successful Monaco, but it will beryllium tinged pinch regret that astatine 40 he astir apt won’t beryllium racing up nan Giant of Provence again.

Tempora mutantur, but not nan Ventoux. That, partly, reflects 1 of nan cardinal features of nan Tour; nan measurement it perpetually revisits and rewrites its past successful places that person hardly changed since nan first visit. Go information nan partially banked area astatine Saint-Estève and connected to nan virtually consecutive haul done nan oak-wooded little slopes, and it’s fundamentally nan aforesaid sadistic acquisition that nan stars of nan 50s, 60s and 70s mightiness person undergone, possibly pinch amended tarmac arsenic you spell up pinch hardly a hairpin to break nan gradient until nan last haul crossed nan scree slopes to nan top.

The Ventoux is simply a spot wherever worldly happens connected nan Tour, very small of it good, opening pinch Jean Malléjac’s near-death successful 1955 and continuing pinch Tom Simpson’s melodramatic demise successful 1967. That event, which I investigated successful my 2002 curriculum vitae of Simpson, Put Me Back connected My Bike, remains nan mountain’s defining moment, lending a statement of visit to each ascent to nan desolate discarded of wind- and frost-blasted limestone scree connected its pointed summit. The procreation that raced pinch Simpson has mostly passed connected – the decease successful April of Barry Hoban being a lawsuit successful constituent – but nan poignancy of his decease and nan tales astir it suffer thing successful nan telling.

Chris Froome runs pinch his motorcycle aft he collapsed during nan thrust up Mont Ventoux successful 2016, 1 of nan astir bizarre incidents successful Tour de France history. Photograph: Bernard Papon/AP

Equally memorable, if pinch a touch of farce, was the Froome fiasco successful 2016. Froome slipping and sliding successful his stiff-soled c shoes and clicking pedal cleats pinch a immense crowd baying astatine him was astir apt nan astir outlandish arena I witnessed successful 27 Tours, and nan emotion past was that this benignant of point could hap only successful 1 of 3 places, each arsenic extreme: nan Ventoux, l’Alpe d’Huez, and nan seldom visited extinct volcano of Le Puy de Dôme successful nan Massif Central.

After all, it wasn’t that agelong since, successful 2000, astir of nan title infrastructure had had to beryllium near down owed to dangerous, but not freak, precocious winds, meaning that erstwhile Marco Pantani won up of Lance Armstrong, nan decorativeness felt for illustration a return to nan 1970s. Given nan utmost beingness situation and nan sumptuous tv images it provides, it’s not astonishing that nan upland now hosts nan Tour acold much often than of old, beautiful overmuch matching l’Alpe d’Huez for wave whereas successful nan 80s and 90s, 1 sojourn per decade was deemed enough.

The 1 awesome alteration successful caller years concerns not nan upland itself but nan area astir it. Recently, nan newspaper l’Equipe documented really cycling up nan Ventoux is now beforehand and centre of nan section economy, pinch much than 90,000 cyclists each twelvemonth pedalling up its slopes by nan astir accepted route, nan southerly roadworthy from Bédoin which opens earlier successful nan twelvemonth than nan northerly way from Malaucène. On nan past 2 visits I made to nan mountain, I’d person expected nan slopes to beryllium engaged erstwhile I rode up 1 June, but little truthful connected a bitter October time erstwhile ray snowfall was falling astatine nan observatory.

Cycle cafes, rhythm prosecute businesses and awesome players successful nan rhythm manufacture cater for nan two-wheeled hordes, acold beyond nan accepted stop-off constituent astatine Chalet Reynard, wherever nan thermometer was reputed to person surgery connected nan boiling time Simpson died. There are 3 dedicated photographers who make a surviving from trading photographs to those who thrust up each day, turning complete €130,000 annually successful 1 case, not to mention nan section businesses that provender and accommodate nan cyclists positive awesome wide information events specified arsenic sportives and gran fondos; nan strangest, perhaps, being nan “brotherhood of nan Ventoux nutters”, rank of which goes to those who person ridden up nan Ventoux 3 times successful a azygous time utilizing each of nan 3 different ways to nan summit. Given nan Tour’s changeless pursuit of caller and televisually absorbing challenges, it’s astir apt only a matter of clip until nan title follows suit.