Welcome,

In the summer of 2008, I started my blogging experience. I wrote about the Epic Summer, my trip to the Tour de France. It was, for sure, a bucket list item for me. I liked blogging well enough that I thought I'd continue to blog about my cycling experiences. It will be an infrequently updated blog, but I hope the updates will be interesting. If nothing else, the exercise should prove useful to improving my rather weak writing and communication skills. Thanks for checking in and I hope you enjoy.

Take care,
Jim Dennedy

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Day 10

Mt. Ventoux, meet Ms. Veritas. Today, Ms. Veritas and I 'le crushed' Mt. Ventoux. The weather was a bit on the bad side. It was cooler than yesterday, but not cold. Overcast most of the day and clouds rolling in; very humid. As we approached the base of Ventoux, I heard several claps of thunder and the rain started coming down, not hard but steady. It felt like a warning from Mr Ventoux to stay off his mountain. I felt pretty good and was looking to give it a go, so I ignored the warnings. I turned on to Ventoux, 24 km to go. The grade was a constant +8%, my heart rate monitor and cadence sensor were not functioning. So, the only metrics I had by which to judge the effort were breathing rate and speed. I let the legs and Ms Veritas do the talking. We quieted Mr Ventoux and had a great day.

Ventoux is an epic climb for several reasons. It is one climb on which Armstrong has not one a stage of the TdF. It is not only long and steep, but offers two very different sceneries. The lower 2/3s of the mountain is covered in a thick forest and heavy vegetation. It holds the moisture and humidity extremely well and somewhat protects you from the wind. The top is very different. You leave the forest and are almost immediately into what they call the 'moonscape'. Not a tree in sight, the mountain is totally covered in rock and stone. The wind whips hard around the corners and to help you out, the road on the last 1/3 tips more and more aggressively upwards. The last 2 km felt vertical and the computer measured +15% for long stretches. What a climb. It took me 1:35 to nail it. Based on the 2:00 estimate, I am calling it a victory for Ms Veritas and me.

Instead of taking the bus home, I decided to ride the 30 km back to the hotel. We had about 8 in our group. Another fella, Kevin, and I sat on the front pulling the group the entire 30 km. We hammered home at an average pace of +23 mph. The boys behind said they enjoyed the pull home. As we rolled into town, Kevin looked across with a bit of a grin and said, "Looks like we didn't work hard enough on Ventoux." Like I said, it was a good day.
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