Day 8 - Mont Ventoux

There was a pensive mood at breakfast in anticipation of our so called handicap race. Not as much banter as usual as the competitive side of the Kidsons cycling team became evident.
The weather had already failed the tally-ho and wind test – I was prepared to go to town for coffee but the boys decided to take on Mont Ventoux.
As we cycled through the beautiful village of Bedoin weather started to turn and as we arrived at our starting point and turned to face the monster that is Mont Ventoux the weather turned nasty my friends!!!!! Gusting winds and intermittent rain with lightning flashed prominent. The old dog didn’t want to be conquered by Waggas best.
Off we set at about 9.30am we didn’t worry about the 2 minute staggered handicap start, we just wanted to try and beat the weather. The whippets led us out in Dan, Hammo, Sellars and Dydey followed by the peleton which was Harmer, The Doc, Barnyard, Chambo, Craig and Brys.
The early part of the ride was quite exposed to the wind and at a modest 9%. Then we entered the pine forests with gradients varying between tops of 14% and lows of 9%. There was some protection through the forest and it was here that I made my move on Harmer, I sailed past him on a 12% section and his body language was poor, he looked a broken man, 5 minutes later Harmer caught back up and I said “good stuff Lionel keep it up” he gave me the “Johnny Mahr” stare and didn’t say a thing. He accelerated away and caught up to  Dydey leaving me on a lonely ride to the  top to take on the Monster by myself. The Monster threw some more lightning, thunder and rain at us but we weren’t to be broken.

Coming out of the forest and onto the last 7km we finally got some relief with the sun coming out and the gradient easing to between 7% and 10% and strong wind at our back, signs at each 1km mark showing the gradient for the next 1km.
Reaching the summit after about 1hr 50 mins for us slow ones we turned right to  a category 3 wind, 75km/hr winds greeted us and nearly toppled us over. The mountain went down fighting but we conquered 1500m climbed over 2 hours. All other tour companies cancelled because of dangerous conditions but not the Wagga Wagga wombats.
A quick photo and loaded up the car for the trip down because of freezing conditions.
Some highlights worth mentioning:
• The beautiful pendulous foyer in the hotel
• The rock/sheep which live amongst the rocks
• Making it to the beacon on top of Mt Ventoux which used to be used when shipping was big throughout the area before the 40 year drought in the 1930's.
The humming noise that Bryce kept hearing near the top (the wind through  Chambo's ears)
• The Doc travelling 30 hours by plane to sit in a bar in France with 10 blokes and read a book.
• And showing the boys the boiling temp of water at high altitude.
Yours in cycling
The Wolf of Wagga Wagga
David Willanshill