Southgate Cycling Club

 

Ventoux Challenge

By Terry

The Cingle

It all started last October on the emitremmus as Tim and I rode out and back to Saffron Walden discussing the classic tour climbs that we would like to do in the future that the seeds of an idea was planted in my head, and over Christmas whilst searching the Internet for rides to do next year that I saw an event called the "Cingle" - apparently it's French for "screwball" - its only 80 miles, it said, it's easy, the only problem was that you have to ride over a certain mountain called Ventoux, all 3 ascents in 1 day.

Over the next 2 to 3 weeks I asked around to see who fancied joining me in this folly. Happily and surprisingly, Adrian, Robin and Tim all said they quite liked the idea, surely it was possible, enough people have already done it according to the official site www.clubcinglesventoux.org. 

Over the next months we all trained as much as we could and the nearer it got to the big day the more nervous we all became. We'll be alright, we said. 80 miles, 40 of which were downhill, meaning that... erm... the other 40 are all uphill, 4445 metres of climbing, with average gradients of 4.7%, 7.5% and 7.5% for the 3 climbs; nothing steeper than 10.7%, we'll be okay I said.

France

We arrived late, having missed the ferry due to an accident on the M2. It was midnight out in the French countryside and very dark but we found the place OK due to some very good directions sent to us by Craig and Vicky (the people who own the place) I had already phoned to say that we would be late and Craig said that he would wait up for us. We saw a gate and a dark shady looking garden. Feeling very tired at this time, we crept up to the front door and knocked as quietly as we could. Craig came and let us in, and we all went straight to bed.

When we woke up the next morning, we were all stunned at the beauty of the place.
We opened the shutters and there, in full view, was Ventoux and down in the courtyard a lovely shaded stone table, perfect for sitting down to unwind after a long ride.

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The view out of the window.
(left-top) In the distance: Ventoux.
(left-bottom) Below: a beautiful garden with a stone table and chairs.
(right-top) stairs leading into the house.
(right-bottom) a fountain in the garden.

After a welcome shower it was down to breakfast. The dining room has cycling posters hung around the room and some of Craig's trophies, a scrapbook showing photos of some of his wins, lots of cycling books and loads of information about riding in the local area. Whist we were setting the bikes up in the garage, Craig came down and offered to take us out for a little ride so that we could acclimatise and get a general feel for the area.
An hour later off we went. It was pure and complete "cycling heaven" - quite roads, hills all around us, riding along roads that either side were lined with fruit trees, grapevines, lavender, and olives. It was picture postcard stuff all around; the scenery was absolutely breathtaking... and all in the shadow of Ventoux.

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Breathtaking scenery in the towns and countryside, all in the shadow of Ventoux.

The first town we stopped at was Malaucene, then on to Bedoin, two of the main towns at the foot of Ventoux, a quick lunch and back to the house. On the way out and back we went over a small climb called, col de Madelaine, 4 Kilometres of climbing each side. By now it was getting very hot 35°C and we all were thinking the same, if it's going to be this hot tomorrow we really are going to suffer!

Back at the house we all carried out the final checks to make sure the bikes were OK and then just tried to rest and conserve energy for the next day. As we sat at the table in the garden Craig's mum came out and offered us all tea and biscuits, this was all too good to be true.

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An evening meal in town.

The big day. We all slept too long and got up late. By the time we left the house, the temperature was already in the mid 30's °C. We got to Malaucene quite quickly and straight to the bottom of the climb; the time was 10:30. We all looked at each other and said "Okay, this is it. Let's get on with it!" 

My mantra when climbing, is find your own pace, settle down and get on with it... and on no account look up! According to the profile there was nothing very steep for at least the very first 6 or 7 kilometres. Well, after ten minutes we had all used our bottom gear at least once but you keep going and grind down the miles.

I stopped after about 45 minutes. I was feeling rough. It was 35° or more and I was shivering and had a headache. Great! Dehydrated already!
I had a drink and waited for the others. Robin came along, we waited for 5 minutes and off we went again, not wanting to seize up.

According to the profile, the really hard part starts after about 8 kilometres: 4 kilometres at an average gradient of 10.5% - we hoped we already entered this part. We hadn't!

Speaking to Craig the day before, he said, "you know when your in this section when you see the snow posts"; something I had forgotten. 5 minutes after we had stopped here, there they were; this is where the suffering really started: bottom gear, grinding away just to reach the top speed of 4 mph. After about 30 minutes of this, I reached a plateau, on a roundabout where you turn off to reach the ski station and stopped to enjoy the view.

Only a quarter of a bottle of water left and no idea where we would get any more water. The altitude post said we had reached almost 1300 metres in height, only another 600 more to go. Off I went again. As soon as I went around the corner, looking at me was an oasis: a beautiful outdoor restaurant, over a thousand metres up, fantastic!
I went rushing up to the bar and bought 2 great big bottles of wonderful freezing cold water. I went back to the road, filled up my bottles, drank as much as I could and waited for the others.

Tim had been suffering with a bad back the whole trip but had bravely carried on.
Adrian had stayed with him.
Robin had run out of gears early on and had just kept on grinding with brute strength.

Off I went again.

After another 2 or 3 kilometres you reach the end of the forest and come out into the famous moonscape and you get your first close-up view of the telecommunication mast at the top. From the bottom it looks very small and then as you start to climb, you lose sight of it. When you see it at this stage, it brings things into perspective. It is enormous and you are still 400 meters from the top! But from here you can see nearly all the road ahead: 3 more hairpins and you're there, but this is also where the gradient kicks up to 10% and more again.
"Don't look up!", I told myself. "Just keep pedaling and before you know it, you'll be there".

I'm terrified of heights and this last part, for me, was a real struggle. There was no forest to hide the enormous drop. I kept going and eventually reached the top. By now, I had already decided that, for this trip, getting to the top once, was going to be enough; getting up here once is an achievement, to do it 3 times in 1 day would be madness, dangerous even, especially in this heat. It had taken me 1 hour and 50 minutes to ride up about 14 miles, an average speed of just over 8 mph - my normal is about 18mph - this really is a beast of a climb but when you reach the top what a feeling of achievement! 

Soon after I got to the top, Adrian came along, followed by Robin and Tim.
Everone agreed that today, once was enough. From the top you could see Tom Simpson's memorial which was about a mile down the other side, so we had to ride down and see it. This also meant another mile to climb back to the top again at 10%, but this time we had the ride down to look forward to - well the others did, with my fear of heights, this for me was the worst part.

We all made it down and heading back to house we are already discussing how we will do it next year, because one thing that is certain is that we are determined to come back next year and complete the Cingle.