More Like the Moon than a Mountain...

So I've been keeping up with the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, a cycling race and prelude to the Tour de France. Last night I caught up with stage 4, which finished on the famous French mountain "Le Mont-Ventoux". The race climbed Ventoux South from Bédoin for 22km (about 13 miles) and climbed over 1610 m. Wikipedia says this about the Ventoux:

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

I've seen some professional bike riding in my day, and most of it is fairly interesting. Some of it, however, is downright amazing to watch. Such was the case last night. These riders suffered up this climb. Near the finish I thought some might actually fall off their bikes. Doubt me? Here are a few quotes I managed to dig up about the Ventoux.

"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.

Sounds fun, no?
J