{"id":627,"date":"2018-06-09T22:04:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T21:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/?p=627"},"modified":"2018-06-13T16:33:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T15:33:42","slug":"__trashed-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/__trashed-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 6 Mont Ventoux (Friday 8th June)"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 miles to the summit, 1191 metres climbed, 6.3 mph average speed, elapsed time 2hrs 33 minutes.<\/p>\n

Set off at 9 am on \u00a0bright sunny morning with a clear view of our objective from just outside our hotel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The objective of the day on the horizon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first part of the climb, through open countryside, was quite magical. Gears softly whirring, cuckoos calling, skylarks\u00a0 rising and the\u00a0smell of lavender in the air. What a time to be out on the bike!<\/p>\n

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Only lavender field seen in full flower all tour.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shortly the route entered the Ventoux forest offering some shade from the sun. The gradient to Chalet Reynard averaged about 4.5% and is considered to be the easiest of the three routes. The starting elevation in Sault is higher than those of Bedoin and Malaucene. However, from Chalet Reynard to the summit the gradient varied from 7% to 11% in places. It was a long hard flog to the summit and on a couple of occasions I took a 2 minute breather. During the 11% sections I was now starting to question if it was such a good time to be out on the bike!!<\/p>\n

Being one of the last to reach the summit there was a nice welcoming party.<\/p>\n

Some views from the top.<\/p>\n

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The iconic Mont Ventoux Radio Tower with the summit marker to the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The road traveled.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Pauline and Mick, good friends from previous tours<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I headed down from the summit with Pauline and Mick and stopped st the Tommy Simpson memorial where I placed a small enamel Christchurch Bicycle Club badge.<\/p>\n

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Tommy Simpson Memorial<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the memorial we carried on down to Chalet Reynard for a hot chocolate and to buy more Lycra – a Ventoux cycling jersey. There was a choice of routes down from Chalet Reynard, the long one via Bedoin or the short one, retracing our steps\u00a0 back to Sault. We chose the short route. It started to rain as we left which became very heavy as we descended, making braking and cornering tricky. Fortunately, the rain stopped on the lower slopes for our run into Sault.<\/p>\n

In the evening we had a very enjoyable group meal where certificates were presented and thanks were given to the excellent support team of Nigel, Trevor and Martin.<\/p>\n

This was my third tour with Peak Tours and the organisation and support was of the usual high standard. All the more impressive as this was the first time the tour had run. If there were any teething problems they were not evident and that has to be down to the efforts of Nigel, Trevor and Martin – thank you guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 miles to the summit, 1191 metres climbed, 6.3 mph average speed, elapsed time 2hrs 33 minutes. Set off at 9 am on \u00a0bright sunny morning with a clear view of our objective from just outside our hotel.\u00a0 The first part of the climb, through open countryside, was quite magical. Gears softly whirring, cuckoos calling, … Continue reading “Day 6 Mont Ventoux (Friday 8th June)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-week-in-provence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":663,"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordingbridgeweather.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}