Ventoux Looms

With less than a week to go until Friday the 9th, the Ventoux weather forecast looks, well, all right: that's if you like riding up and down mountains in 35 kph wind in 5-8 degrees Centigrade. At least it’s not set to rain. Training, such as it is, has gone reasonably well, ie I've tackled some little Oxfordshire hills in a Tizer fuelled rage without any suffering friction burns of the type endured on Streatley Hill. This improvement was facilitated in part by the servicing of the Chopper by Rikki at AW Cycles. For those who don’t know, there is pretty much no bicycle on earth that Rikki doesn’t know about. This is not least because he has probably owned one. Rikki explained to me that there were so many pieces missing from or broken inside the Sturmey Archer hub, it was amazing the thing had been able to change gear. In any case, he assured me that my legs would be met with considerably less resistance when pedalling.

With departure on Wednesday morning in the diary, my mind is therefore on the long drive south with Messrs. Andrews, Gelling and Beadle, the first two of which will attempt to join the Club des Cinglés du Mont-Ventoux with me on the following day. That's three ascents of Ventoux in one day, ie 4,500m of climbing over about 85 miles. It's good to have something to take my mind off the Friday...