Le Géant de Provence

Seeing the Tour de France has been a dream of mine for the last 10 years. Seeing the Tour de France while Lance Armstrong was still racing was something even more incredible. Back in the summer of 2004, I had planned a trip to France with my brother and friend with the explicit plan of catching a critical stage of the tour. We chose a similar mountain top finish in the Alpine town of Courcheval. Unfortunately, the trip fell through and Lance retired. I thought I had missed my chance to see history being made.

Things started to come together this past fall when Jen and I learned that we would be coming to France this year. Regardless of who was going to ride, I was planning on seeing at least one stage of the tour. In early January of this year, Lance announced his return and committed to racing in the TdF. I was ecstatic about catching him and quickly searched for the right stage to watch the race this year. For any cycling fan, this was an easy decision. I chose the second to last day of the tour where the race ended in a mountain top finish high up on Mont Ventoux. The 12 mile climb up Mont Ventoux is legendary and one of the most difficult mountains that the tour can traverse. While this profile of the stage skews the vertical axis a bit to show the elevation change, you can still clearly see that this is a steep and long climb. The climb was put at the end of a 150km hilly day that would provide no time to recover before hitting the base of the mountain already at full speed. As the route changes every year, Mont Ventoux hasn't been featured since 2002. The climb has become legendary because of the battles fought on its slopes, the now mythic death of a British rider in 1967 during the race (presumably due to exhaustion) and its moonlike appearance at the top. Mont Ventoux is only 6000 feet high, but stands so much higher than anything else around it that it is known as Le Géant de Provence. Having a TdF stage finish at its peak the day before the race ends in Paris is highly unusual. It meant that nothing was settled until the climb was over.

View Larger Map I had followed the race closely in the days prior to our departure. Lance was sitting 3rd going into the stage with a host of very talented and much younger riders just seconds behind him and ready to take away his place on the podium. Third place was pretty amazing for Lance considering his 3 years away from the sport and his older age. That meant that it if I could get up to the finish (or even close) then I would be able to see the point at which the race was won or lost. There easily could have been a major reshuffling and I wanted to be at the point where someone broke or made that critical acceleration.

There were a couple issues with realizing my goal of getting up the mountain. First, when Jen and I arrived at the base of the backside of Mont Ventoux the afternoon before the race, we were suprised to learn that even the back way up the mountain was closed to cars. That meant that you had to be about 30 hours early to be able to drive up to a point to watch the race. The obvious conclusion for the international crowd already up there was to go camping or bring an RV with everything you need and spend the night on the mountain. Second, without the ability to drive up to any portion of the mountain, I was going to have difficulty convincing my pregnant wife of the necessity of hiking uphill for this race. She doesn't share the same enthusiasm about the TdF that I do and I could guarantee neither bathroom nor food once we got up there. Third, many roads leading to the mountain were also closed the morning of the race meaning that not only could you not drive up the summitt, but you might not also be able to get close to the base of the mountain. Take those, add around 750k people, language issues and the uncertainty around the entire thing and we were left with quite a challenge.

At dinner that night, Jen and I discussed the options. It was clear that I was going alone which in hindsight was absolutely the right choice. For those feeling sorry for Jen, don't worry, we had a beautiful hotel set on another quiet mountainside. Jen spent the day relaxing and even managed to catch the last hour of the race on TV.

My day, on the other hand, couldn't have been more different. After a quick breakfast on race morning, I packed my bags for the day: 4 kashi bars, 2 bottles of water, juice, apple, book, detailed hiking/road map of Ventoux, small foldable chair, hat, sunglasses, twine, scissors, 6ft garden pole and a big TX flag. More on the items in a moment. I studied the map carefully that morning expecting a complete disaster on the small country roads. I ended up driving to a tiny town just a few kilometers into the 20km climb up the mountain. Since the roads were closed, I took a side route and parked 2km away from the town and started hiking. Once I got to the town of St Colombe, I started uphill and saw this. Mont Ventoux was closer than before, but the 18km remaining to the summitt was a bit disheartening. It was before noon and I still had 4 hours before the race would come through, so I started the steady uphill climb with camera in one hand and my walking pole in the other.

When you take 750k people and put them on one mountainside in anticipation for an event that takes only moments, you can understand why the real party starts hours before. It was a circus walking up the hill and definitely part of the experience I would have missed had I just drove up and camped the day before. It's truly an international event with flags and songs coming from all the different nationalities represented. Despite the cultural differences, there were really just two types of people on the mountain: those who had been there the night before and those of us that were hiking or biking up the mountain. Those that had been there the night before were certainly more entertaining as many were well on their way to drunkeness. They had broken out the flags, banners, music, picnics, beer and had even painted the roads with motivational phrases like this... Some of my favorites from the hike up: the Smurfs cheering on the struggling hikers, an unofficial TdF referee who was not quite sure which way was up the mountain, and a group of drunken Germans pointing to the word "attack" scrawled on the pavement and shouting "attack" every time an uphill bound spectator-cyclist struggled by. The crowds were heavy all the way up, but I was suprised to find that they got bigger the farther I went. After two and a half hours and 15km, I decided I was about as high as I was going to get and stopped to set up camp just before the 5km mark. I pulled out the twine, scissors, tape, garden pole and flag and proceeded to put together my prop for the Texas support section. A French guy nearby asked me what typed of flag it was as I finished and raised it up in the wind. I told him it was the state flag of Texas. He said, "Texas, ah Lance, tres bien" with a smile. I think we was secretly a fan of Lance (forbidden by law in France) so I had him take my photo. As I sat there eating lunch, I managed to befriend some Brits who had the full satellite TV set up on their camper. We watched the action develop in the valley below on TV in anticipation of the big showdown high up on the mountain where we were situated. As the riders were hitting the base of the mountain 9 miles below, the TdF caravan was coming through our area near the summitt. It's a chance for the sponsors to get their name and free products out, but I think the real reason is to just get people out of the damn way. Unlike many other sports, you can get all the way up to the cyclists, take a photo inches away, scream something in their ears, run along aside and occasionally bump them. Imagine racing the final 12 miles of a 100 mile day uphill with 750k fans screaming just feet away from you. There were solid crowds the whole way so I can only imagine what the riders were thinking when they got up to us. Afterwards I read numerous news accounts that it was the most crowded of any TdF stage in its 100 year history.

After the caravan, we had about 30 minutes before the first riders came through. I was with a growing group over at the Brits camper watching the riders come up the mountain and recognized many of the turns that they were now on. Lance and the other key contenders were battling it out and the group had shrunk from about 150 to 6 by the time they got to us. My dilemma of the day was how to hold up the Texas flag while at the same time taking a photo. The riders pass by so quickly and I didn't have time to do one and then the other. So I did my best to raise my flag up high with one arm and reach my other arm over the crowds and snap a few blind photos. Luckily, I managed to get one good one. Lance was looking good as he passed by and managed to successfully defend his spot on the podium. Despite the long hike, blisters, hot sun, few moments of action and then the long descent afterwards, I would definitely do it again. Perhaps with a camper and Jen next time though.

That evening I retold my story to Jen who was even more glad that she didn't try to make it up there with me. I told her that I had one more TdF itch before we headed south the next day. That was to get up to the top of the Le Géant ourselves. After my 18 mile hike, I wasn't about to propose getting back up on my own. So we drove up the backside early the next morning just to look out. It's really incredible how high Mont Ventoux is. It reminds me of Mt Washington in the U.S. Incredibly steep, much higher than anything else around and some of the worst weather/wind in the country. It was an amazing weekend and it only left me with one thought - I need to go back and bike up that mountain someday!

TdF

(click for full album of photos)