March 2017 | 35
on the hill . They were directing a number of sheep dogs to push their flocks along . One group of these not so dumb animals congregated around a drinking fountain at the roadside and noisily slurped the eau potable on offer .
I made a stop at the Simpson memorial . The words on the plaques there , from his widow and daughters , and the simple tokens left by fellow cyclists speak eloquently . It ' s a bleak , tragic and truly evocative spot . The final turn up to the weather station kicks up cruelly but briefly and once you ' ve put a spurt on to get round it , you ' re at the top .
I ' d felt really good on the section of the climb after Chalet Reynard . It was not as steep as the forested part of the ride and I was spared the ravages of Ventoux ' s worst weather . But I calculated that to get back down to Sault and up again for ascent number three - would push me into late evening . With no desire to make my final descent in the dark , I decided to abandon plans to do all three routes .
I flew down to Malaucène , tugging on the brake levers most of the time - worrying that the brake blocks would work loose or spontaneously burst into flames - it felt I was going so fast ! That ' s not to say I wasn ' t overtaken by several riders who ’ d metaphorically cut their cables .
Cyclists talk in doom-laden terms about their fear of tackling the steep climbs in the Alps and Pyrenees . What really fills me with dread is the prospect of descending these mountains , with feet like blocks of ice and unresponsive fingers trying to get a meaningful grip on the brake levers . Give me an uphill slog any time .
The bike computer informed me that I ' d hit a top speed of 66.5 kilometres per hour on the descent . That may be crawling along by Tour standards but it ’ s quite fast enough for me .
I hadn ' t done all three routes as planned but two out of three ain ’ t bad . The full monty really requires an earlier start than 10am ( and definitely a shorter lunch break without the – ahem - accompanying glasses of beer ). But we vowed to return for that piece of unfinished business on the bald mountain . We ’ d be mad not too .