This is the most famous and difficult ascent. The road to the summit has an average gradient of 7.6%. Until Saint-Estève, the climb is easy, but the 16 remaining kilometres have an average gradient of 10%. The last kilometres have strong, violent winds. The ride takes 2-3 hours for trained amateur individuals, and professionals can ride it in 1-1.5 hours. The fastest time so far recorded has been that of Iban Mayo in the individual climbing time trial of the 2004 Dauphiné Libéré: 55' 51". The time was measured from Bédoin for the first time in the 1958 Tour de France, in which Charly Gaul was the fastest at 1h 2' 9". ~source
"The Ventoux is a god of Evil, to which sacrifices must be made. It never forgives weakness and extracts an unfair tribute of suffering."
~Roland Barthes, French philosopher, pioneer of semiotics, sometimes windbag and full-time bicycle racing fan, describes Mont Ventoux, a 13-mile climb above the treeline into a desolation of strewn rock, in the Tour de France.
"Physically, the Ventoux is dreadful. Bald, it's the spirit of Dry: Its climate (it is much more an essence of climate than a geographic place) makes it a damned terrain, a testing place for heroes, something like a higher hell."
~Roland Barthes, French philosopher and bicycle racing fan, author of Mythologies, describes Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France.
"Nineteen hundred meters up there is completely different from1,900 any place else. There's no air, there's no oxygen. There's no vegetation, there's no life. There's no life. Rocks. Any other climb there's vegetation, grass and trees. Not there on the Ventoux. It's more like the moon than a mountain."
~Lance Armstrong, American cycling king, wearing Tour de France yellow jersey on the Ventoux Stage, 2000.
The steepest sustained grade on Ride The Rockies is typically 6 to 7 percent. You can expect to climb grades of this ilk for ten uninterrupted miles. (Occasionally a route includes 15, or even 20 miles of continuous climbing.) Also occasionally, a route will include a short (i.e. 1/4 mile) stretch of road as steep as 10 percent.
All this pondering got me searching for an e-mail that Al had sent me back in October after he did CFC 2006. It contained data regarding the 2004 CFC. At left is an elevation profile from the Sunday ride of that year (click on graph to enlarge).
"During the winter of 1813 as part of the War of 1812, a battle occurred near the river between British and Native American troops under the command of British General Henry Proctor and Native American chief Tecumseh, and a small division of Kentucky militia under command of General James Winchester. Greatly outnumbered and facing total slaughter, Winchester surrendered with British assurances of safety of the prisoners, but in a few days they were massacred and scalped by the Native Americans without British intervention. The massacre was only ended by the return to the area of Tecumseh, who had been away. He then proceeded to admonish the British officers for allowing such behavior.
The Massacre of the River Raisin became a rallying cry ("Remember the Raisin") particularly for Kentuckians, and American troops returned in the spring to drive the British from Michigan forever. The original battlefield is now a park in Monroe, Michigan and has a monument to the Kentucky soldiers who died there."
