Mont Ventoux | Bike Rebel Without a Cause

Tour de France 2014 – Part 2

Post stage reports of my Tour de France 2014 – part 2, with half a Marmotte, the Cinglé du Mont Ventoux and long transfers by car.

To Bédoin And Back

I redesigned the road book a little to accommodate for the transfers, as both the one to Bédoin and the one to Jausiers would be over three hours.

As usual, I was a little optimistic when I plotted the transition stage involving the Croix de Fer, Télégraphe and Galibier.

Meaning I arrived later at the summit of the Galibier than anticipated and the trip from there to Bédoin took a lot longer too.

Tour de France 2014 – Stage 6

Cinglé du Mont Ventoux

As we didn’t arrive in Bédoin before 21:00 yesterday, we were lucky to get a bite at the Italian restaurant after we settled into our room.

It was almost midnight by the time we went to bed.

Smart people undertaking the ‘Cinglé du Mont Ventoux’ effort, will tuck in early and get on their bike at the break of dawn…

However, the hotel owner was not going to serve breakfast before 8:30 anyway – no exceptions, because that privilege was reserved for the Saturday, when large crowds of Belgian cyclists would occupy the Ventoux for their equivalent to our Alpe d’HuZes.

So, as I did not want to start on an empty stomach, which would be suicide anyway, I still got sufficient sleep…

Tour de France 2014 – Main Page

During the second half of June, we had another expedition to the high mountains: in the French alps, crossing into Italy several times, new cols were conquered during my own “Tour de France 2014”.

We had to abort the planned trip in 2010, when Paula was hospitalized, but for this year’s TDF, I pretty much constructed a similar road book.

With a few additions…