Carpentras - Mont Ventoux via Bédoin

My first large climb had to be a famous one, so after months of training on the mountain program of a fitness bike (there are simply no mountains in The Netherlands) we finally went to the South of France in May 2001. We stayed at the camping Lou Comtadou in Carpentras and that is also where this route start. First a 16 km warming-up to Bedoin and there the real work started.
We reached the top in 2 hours and 20 minutes. Not a fabulous time, but we made it! We went back by the same route because the North-side was closed due to ice and snow (!)

- Difficulty level: Unnecessary to say, but climbing the Mont Ventoux is really hard. Ascending for 23 long kilometers without one moment of rest or recuperation. The last two kilometers took us 20 minutes (yep, that´s 6 km/hr) on the lowest gear of my hybrid bike. Maybe on a racing bike I wouldn´t had made it (lowest gear still too high). Furthermore, we went up in May, so we didn´t suffer too much heat in the forest nor the unbearable heat after Chalet Reynard nor the annoying flies around your head all the time and - lucky us- the Mistral didn´t lash us neither. One could theefore conclude that we had an easy climb under mild conditions...

- Note: of course I didn´t have a GPS back in 2001, but I really think this route should not lack in my WikiLoc collection so I drew it by hand. Accurate though, because the entire route goes by road.

- Realizada el 03/05/2001