Day 9

Did absolutely nothing today. I am looking at Mt Ventoux tomorrow and am pretty nervous about making it to the top. Before coming, I generally had no concerns about completing any of the climbs or any of the rides. The training with the team and the rides in the mountains of Georgia, I thought, would be sufficient. I have not been trying to race these climbs, but trying to keep a steady, hard pace and complete it. Since knocking a few out and experiencing these climbs, I've had an attitude adjustment. The climbs are just so long and steep. Tomorrow will likely be a 30 km (hour and a half crusey) ride to the start of Ventoux and then two hours of grinding away. By grinding away, imagine your heart rate at 160 beats per minute for two hours. The pedal cadence will likely be around 55-60 revolutions per minute mashing away in your easiest gear. Mentally, this is tough because no matter how steep the grade increases, you know you are out of gears. Your only respite is to get out of the saddle, hammer through it and look for a more forgiving grade in the next several meters. The former pro guiding our tour group, Eric Van Lancker, has been coaching me a bit. For the fellas on the team, this dude won the Mt Ventoux stage in Paris-Nice a few years back. He did the 21 km climb in 1:10. He gave me the 2 hr time objective.

I tried to do laundry again today. I came upon a new revelation today; the French will never conquer the world. No one works around here. It is Saturday and so many places are closed. The Laundromats have very limited hours and not open on Sat. Is has been the same on nearly every day. When you would normally expect shops to be open, they are generally closed because they don't want to be bothered. Pretty strange. The only places which are open nearly 100% of the time are the brasseries and small restaurants. The owners are pretty friendly and love to take our Euros. So, I went to the super market, bought some laundry detergent and did the wash the way my ancestors used to do it; well sort of. I washed in the sink in the hotel room, threw the soapy clothes on the floor of the shower, left the shower running the entire time as the rinse cycle, wrung the clothes somewhat as the spin cycle and hung them to dry all over the room; dripping of course all over the carped floor. The part about the ancestors referred to laundry by hand versus a machine, I sound a bit spoiled and melodramatic.

The afternoon and evening were awesome. I took a 3 hour power nap with the window open. I felt the hot summer air and warm breeze of Provence through the open window. Temperatures were just below 90, not a cloud in the sky. The evening cooled quite a bit and the breeze picked up. Ten of us loaded in the van of the logistics manager for the trip, Wim. Wim drove us to Gordes, about 15 km away. This place blew me away. I encourage you to look it up on line (http://www.gordes-village.com/html/presentation2.html) its worth the few minutes. You can check out this link, or Google it. It was a castle carved out of a stone cliff in the mid 1500s with a small city etched all around it. It was truly fairytale like in the view as we approached the city. When there, the views and the beauty met all expectations. The old city streets had been preserved. It felt like walking through time. We walked to the edge of the old city, through the pave (cobble stone like) streets to the former city wall. Looking south, you saw acres of vineyards, olive orchards and lavender fields. Beautiful and aromatic.

We walked back to the city center to the only restaurant on what was likely the old 'town square'. We had dinner on the terrazzo, near a fountain in the center of the plaza, surrounded by large stone buildings that had been turned into shops (again, not open and not really sure of their hours). The terrazzo was not all that large, maybe 50 feet in circumference. The restaurant used about a quarter of it. They had a vine covered trellis on their main patio and then extended into the terrazzo with tables and large umbrellas. Between the trellis area and the terrazzo area, a small 5 piece band was playing, mostly American jazz and some reggae. The sound echoed off all the old stone buildings, pretty cool atmosphere. For the past few days, I have been eating pretty good. Sticking to food and vegies of the region. It is a lot like eating in California, if you do the Cali thing and try to eat locally grown food. The food has a great taste and the restaurants appreciate your eating their locally grown food. I have been partaking in the wine of the region as well; only Cote du Ventoux for me over the last few days. Been trying to get a bit of the mountain juice to help propel me up this beast. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.