Diary written by: Bernt Pölling-Vocke ( bernty@gmx.com )

11:30 am and 4.5 kilometers from our hotel we are enjoying ourselves in front of a GoSports-store at a mall near Montelimar right now and waiting for the bike-mechanic to show up for work because we finally found a store with a new and fitting rearwheel for Franks bike. Supposingly he is due to show up at 12:30, we will see... Frank sais that he didn´t sleep very well last night because he couldn´t get his troubeling wheel out of his mind. I also didn´t get a lot of sleep but in my case the heat is to blame, everybody suffers his own way I guess.

The day also started of rather funny today as I noticed that I had forgotten my Michigan-sweatshirt after our breakfast-break at a local supermarket and a trip to two banks (the first one was closed as everything everywhere in France, this time it was closed from tuesday until thursday, whatever...). When I got back to our hotel and asked for my sweatshirt I had to find out that it had already travelled to the private laundry of the owners. Paying 35 francs for a parking-space for the bikes was already a rip-off, more or less inheriting the sweatshirt right after our departure is just another chapter of the same old story. Never spend a night at the Hotel du Parc in Montelimar, never... (I also have some soap from the washing-mashine on the sweatshirt right now (she just wanted to start the machine when I walked into the hotel), at least I still have it...).

2nd entry of the day:

Being as tired as a human being can probably be after today´s stage I am writing this lines right now in our hotel-room in Carpentras. I don´t know if a) the bad sleep last night or b) the nerve-robbing wind that was blowing right in our faces all day and at least costed 20 kilometers per hour or c) the uncountable little hills or d) the third day without clouds in a row or e) all of the above is or are to blame but today was just a big struggle from start to finish. But with long and partly boring roads without any turns, high temperatures and all the other stuff mentioned above there isn´t anything left to turn the day into a fun-experience, at least on the bike.

Even Frank was slower than ever before on this tour today. On the other side he was still fast enough to disappear from my field of vision very frequently, maybe the new rearwheel is to blame (and I hope that we don´t have to replace broken spokes every 2nd day from now on). He also received another motivation-push during the evening-hours when the Mont Ventoux came into sight, stretching all his lonely 2000 meters into the sky. I know that that mountain appeared in Franks brain at least twice an hour during the last 6 months and that it is probably the highlight of the tour for him so it´s easy to understand his good or even excited mood even though I have a hard time sharing any of it right now. I don´t have any hard feelings against high mountains but I don´t really think that they were placed were they are so that you have to cycle onto them. The mountain will be interesting on a bike but it will also be more or less impossible (at least for me) and, well, more about that later.

Anyways, tomorrow will be an early christmas for Frank this year. We will stay in Carpentras for two nights and try the mountain without any luggage on the bike. Frank just comes out of the shower and tells me that he will defeat the mountain tomorrow or never again in his life due to the fact that he is in the shape of his life and that he will never be as prepared as right now again. I also consider myself in excellent shape for my standards but, well, I will take a shower first and kill one of the baguettes I still have (this time with marmelade, marmelade probably leads vs cheese by a 2:1 or even 3:1 margin so far). I will also enjoy some cold diet coke with my new McDonalds-glass. I don´t know why but when we stopped at the golden M for lunch a glass got placed on my tray. Maybe it´s some kind of promotion and I was the magic customer #100 or anything else but I also didn´t have a chance to find out with my limited language-abilites in France. I took the glass with me and together with the knife I forgot to return at another hotel about a week ago I am still on pace to have a whole kitchen-inventory by the time we get to Barcelona.

3rd entry of the day:

10:30 pm; much later than at the last entry. I just called my parents in Germany and they told me that I had gotten my desired place at Oldenburg´s university for the fall-semester. While this is not really a big suprise it definetly was a little relief but now back to the tour and the mountain ahead:

I can definetly agree with Frank that the Mont Ventoux is fascinating because it´s a) a very high mountain (almost 2000 meters) and b) a very high mountain without any mountains of it´s kind around. You can already sense this when you consider that Carpentras is at 82 meters and 19 kilometers from the starting-point of the 21-kilometer-ascent to the top of the mountain. There isn´t a lot of hilly terrain between, too. Every once in a while the Tour de France also climbs up the Mont Ventoux (coming from the city of Sault) but the (doped) cycling-pros only have to climb from 700 to 1900 meters so our route should be even more challenging. Just what the doctor ordered...

So far the Mont Ventoux served me well when I wanted to impress other people ("we will cycle to Barcelona and we will also cycle over the...") but deep inside I never believed that I would be able to get up that mountain alive and on my bike. Maybe this is also the reason why I was never looking ahead to tomorrow´s stage as much as Frank who is just absolutly excited about the mountain (and has been this way for an eternity). I don´t know what to think about the ascent. It is probably as if I would try to run a marathon which would be absolute nonsense considering that I have never run more than 10 kilometers all my life. Or it´s the same as if somebody would put up a 10-meter-wall in front of me and I would win a self-regenerating stuffed crust-pizza from Pizza Hut. I would try to jump and I would hurt myself in the process but in the end the wall would remain an unbeatable obstacle and I would only be hungrier than before. It also doesn´t rank very high on my things-to-do-before-I-die-list. If I had never won a tennis-tournament in my life it would creep through my head forever, if I wouldn´t have made it to Paris on my bike last year I would never forgive myself even though I had just sprained my ankle very badly a month before our departure but when I can´t get up that mountain tomorrow it´s just no problem because the whole idea to cycle up there is already complete nonsens and definetly unrealistic. If I get up there (which is still a possibility) I will win a Pizza Hut All-you-can-eat-buffet from Frank, if I don´t he will win one, no matter wether he makes it up there or not. I don´t know if I was stupid when I agreed to that bet but now it´s too late to change it and I will not only loose a lot of sweat but also a bit of money tomorrow. 

Will Frank get up to the mountain-top? I think he will plain simply because he appeared to be in an impossible to match shape so far on our tour. He has also been looking forward to this big-f_____g mountain forever and has talked about it almost daily since December and at least once a minute since yesterday and when you are so focused on something and feel the challenge in such a big way you will probably cycle yourself to death before cancelling the try. We both won´t cycle together tomorrow because we both agree that it is probably better if each of us tries to develop his own rhythem and with the same hotel again for tomorrow night there are also only limited abilities to loose each other (as long as nobody falls down the mountain). I only know that I will not push myself to death. I will either be able to cycle up there with style or I will return to the hotel immedeatly. Pushing up 1900 meters wouldn´t be impossible and it wouldn´t be that tough as well but I won´t make a fool out of myself for something I don´t even desire that much. "The Great Gatsby" also died on his own and tomorrow it will be each of us vs the mountain and with no one around to hand out any assists.

Oh, by the way: the only chess-match of the day in front of GoSports this morning was won by me. I am not only undefeated in 2 games in a row (1-0-1) but also working on my mediocre winning-percentage in a big way by improving to 2-13-1 overall.

Chess statistics:        Bernt vs Frank         1:13:1