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

Considering everything I wrote about todays mountain-stage I don´t really know how I should write today´s report. Just everything turned out different than I had expected it, absoluty everything...

If someone wants to accuse me of trash-talk during the last couple of days and diary-entries it might be important to add that until now I was the one who basically died at each hill or small climb along the road. Of course I am in a great physical shape, otherwise I wouldn´t even be here right now, but Frank was definetly in a class of it´s own so far. Or at least on a level I couldn´t reach.

Whatever: cycling to the foot of the Mont Ventoux was a good appetizer for things to come later on. We climbed from 84 height-meters in Carpentras to about 300 meters and a town called Malaucene, from where the mountain-top would be 21 kilometers removed. And almost 1.700 height-meters...  Cycling to Malaucene I already had quiet some trouble staying in touch with Frank, when the hills started to come I couldn´t keep up with him anymore though. He told me that he felt in absolutly perfect shape, my first impression was that I was in a good cycling mood but once again not in his class. At least that is what you start to think when you can´t keep up with the bike in front of you...

There was also a lot of traffic all the way. Many lazy tourists were on their way to the mountain-top in their cars but there was also a large number of vehicles carrying bikes and in Malaucene quiet a huge number of people came either down the mountain or prepared for the way up. Basically every hundred meters or so you had a bike in front or behind you and every couple of seconds somebody came down the mountain at the speed of light.

And then the unbelievable happened: all the other cyclists around me, many of them looking really professional with very expensive bikes and good cycling equipment, also struggeled a lot. Nobody was racing up the mountain and I started to think that maybe I am the one who isn´t in such a bad shape compared to all those cyclists after all. And if all those professional-looking cyclists struggle as hard as I do, and if they know what they are doing while I am still thinking that I won´t get up there anyways, maybe the whole thing isn´t really that tough?

From kilometer two to four I cycled together with a professional mountain-biker, at least that is what he claimed to be. We chattet a bit and he told me that he had cycled up the mountain before and that the whole affair isn´t that hard if you just cycle smart and don´t throw all you energy on the first ten kilometers. He was also only slightly faster than me and it was just another encouragement on the trip to the top. After five kilometers Frank and me had our last simultaneous break. I somehow got into a mental cycling mood and was thinking about even winning this stage vs Frank, Frank on the other side wanted to make prolongued breaks every kilometer in order to conserve his energies. I don´t know why but those long breaks we took early on didn´t help me at all. You cycle for some minutes, stop for some minutes and after 5 meters on the bike again all positive effects of the break have vanished and you feel as if you cycled all your life. It´s a strange kind of fun to cycle a road that climbs about 8% on the average but I somehow started to enjoy it.

After six or seven kilometers Frank and me lost eye-contact. I only saw him pushing his bike quiet a distance behind me when I looked over my shoulder and from there on we both fought ourselves up the mountain on our own.

It is really hard to put the climb into words and I don´t think that anybody who has not done something like this on his own can´t really understand it anyways. Cycling up 1.700 meters on 21 kilometers is just incredible. It just goes up all the time, sometimes you even have to climb at average rates of 11-12% per kilometer and it just doesn´t really compare to anything I have done sporting-wise before. On the other side it also isn´t really that hard, at least not as hard as I had imagined before. I imagined to fail, so considering the fact that I didn´t one can see that I had pictured it all wrong before today´s stage. On the other hand it was also harder than I had expected it, but while it was harder and sweatier I was also capable of cycling stronger and better than I had ever before. If you would just put me on kilometer elevon on the climb and tell me to cycle just the next kilometer I would probably say "thank you" and just turn around again, but coming from the foot of the mountain and climbing up there meter by meter it was just not as impossible as I had expected it to be.

Frank, sitting right next to me on the balcony of our hotel, just told me that I had probably only run a good show on the first couple of kilometers before activating the afterburners after six or seven kilomters. He also thought that I had fallen of the mountain when he couldn´t catch up with me anymore, especially since we had said that the leading cyclists would stop at every kilometer-stone (there are markings every kilometer up the mountain) and he couldn´t find me anywhere anymore.

Just as I had written before I just didn´t believe in breaks anymore and just kept on cycling, stopping now and then but without any real strategy or system. I just wanted to get up the mountain as fast as possible, even though "fast" is the wrong word when you are cycling just about 10 kilometers per hour. Anything faster would have been just impossible, anything slower and I could have pushed my bike from the beginning (actually didn´t push a single meter, all in all I didn´t push a single meter on the whole tour, cycling from Cologne to Paris last year I pushed more than anybody else by comparison).

The last three kilometers were the toughest. Due to the altitude the trees started to disappear and you had a clear view of the road ahead. And if you have a clear view on three kilometers of concrete sloping itself up the mountain with a million turns ahead of you, cycle about 10 kilometers per hour and have already cycled more or less straight up for almost two hours the mountain really gets into your head big time.

Frank just told me that he would never do something like this again, I think this is the third time he said something like this on this tour. I don´t believe it.., just wait for next year´s tour...

Cycling up the mountain I had thought about getting up the mountain in less than two hours, I failed in that account by a couple of meters but I think I can live with that. At the top of the mountain there were many many tourists (by car) and cyclists. I chatted a bit with a father from the Netherlands who had conquered the mountain together with his two daughters while his wife had driven up the mountain with their car. He also had some extra bottles of water and some baguette, things I gladly accepted when he offered them to me. He also told me, that "if you have cycled up here you can tell people that you can cycle", thanks a lot for the compliments, the water and the bread. By the way: where the hell is Frank??

I don´t know how long I had to wait until he finally reached the mountain-top. For some time I also thought that he might have returned to Carpentras somewhere along the climb. He was already pushing his bike with about 15 kilometers to go but on the other hand he would never be able to rest in peace if he would have failed here so it was only a matter of time until he reached me. He didn´t find any friendly people from the Netherlands and had to buy some water for 12 F per bottle at a little store&restaurant on the mountain-top. I saw the same bottles for 1 F in a supermarket before, selling water up here seems to be a good business.

The way down the mountain and back to Carpentras was a lot of fun compared to the climb up, which was also a lot of fun, just a strange kind of it. I reached 70.3 kilometers per hour once, can´t remember ever cycling faster than 60 before in my life, passed some cars on the way down and almost crashed once. I cycled too close to the side of the street and in one turn steered too hard so that I had the choice between a controlled braking-manoveur next to the street or a hectic and abrupt steering-manoveur back onto the road. I opted for the controlled braking, luckily for me there were no trees around as I was cycling close to 50 kilometers per hour but I also don´t think that I would have cycled as close to the side of the street in the first place if there had been any trees. It doesn´t really matter now, it was a little scary but nothing happened after all...

At least I won the only stage that counted (time-wise), at least that is what Frank had told me on several occasions so far. I also won the downhill-stage and the stage back to Carpentras but you can´t really count those as Frank and me basically cycled together and it doesn´t really make a difference if one or the other has a second or two more on the speedometer of the bike. The mountain was something different and well, I guess I can tell people that I can cycle now... I also won an invitation to an all-you-can-eat buffet at Pizza Hut by cycling that mountain, time for sweet dreams or greasy pizzas for now, I am sure I burned enough calories today to justify a week of ayce-buffets at Pizza Hut.

It might also be interesting to add that I somehow didn´t feel the effects of the thiner air up on the mountain. Frank said that he had a hard time breathing the second half of the climb, I just suppose that I was in a strange class of my own today and could have cycled the K2 just as well (in about 5 hours though).

Chess statistics:        Bernt vs Frank         2:14:1

The Mont Ventoux Statistics

Starting point of the journey to heaven: Carpentras, 84 meters above sea-level
Highest point cycled to: 1912 meters
height-meters travelled: 1828 m