Ex Future Sons in Law Trip

Four years ago I rented the movie  "A Good Year" with Russell Crowe and Marion Cotilard. It was based on a Peter Maille book and was a story of an English stock broker, who goes to the South of France (Provence), to close on the estate where he had summered as a boy and had inherited from his recently deceased grandfather. The short critique: Miscasted Russell Crowe, laughably predictable plot, poor screenplay (Provence is way cooler than ever depicted by Peter Maille) and annoying loose ends. Despite these shortcoming, I loved almost every second  because it looked soooo good. At the end I intended to find out where it was filmed and go there with bike, ASAP.

Bonnieux, an historic "hill village", population approximately 1500, is in the heart of Provence. It has one hotel on the edge of town and next to the bakery. I hatched a plan to go the next summer during the Tour, stay in this hotel for a week  while riding in the area every day. The bonus : The Tour de France announced a 2009 stage up the Giant of Provence, Mount Ventoux. All I needed was some buds to ride with.

Many years ago I met Camiel, a kid from Holland whose parents were life long friends of our best friends the Culllinans. Camiel took up bicycle racing as youngster and I rode with him periodically through the years when he visited the States  Seven years ago Megan Cullinan, (Camiel's age) was married and he and his mother came to the wedding. They stayed at our house for a week. We rode everyday and I got to know him fairly well. At the end of stay, I took him on a ride to make him "an offer he couldn't refuse". On the ride and after a few preliminary questions about his availability status, the age his friends were marrying  etc, I told him that if he would marry my daughter, Sarah, at that time unattached, bright, attractive and so on, we would sell the house we had bought for her while in college. This house had allegedly appreciated 7 fold in 3 years during the ridiculous housing bubble. I told him, if successful, he could have the all money from the sale, to buy a house in Lake Coumo, Northern Italy ,where he was living and working as an industrial designer

"Is this the way it is done here in America?" he querried
"Not so much now" I replied "But I sense things are changing in this direction"
"Are you doing this so you can have a place to stay in Italy and someone to ride with?"
"Is there something wrong with that?"

Well it never happened and being a reasonable person, who is only half Sicilian, I held no grudge. Within weeks of watching the movie I emailed Camiel another "offer he could not refuse". I told him if he would pick me up at the airport in Milan in his car, with a bike rack, and drive us to the South of France, I would cover the hotel, meals and gas. The next day he replied that it WAS an "offer he could not refuse" and the trip was on. Meanwhile Sarah had had a steady boyfriend Greg for several years, and they had recently split. He is also a cyclist and I had ridden with him often. The breakup was friendly and  we continued to ride together when visiting Sarah in Baltimore. He had never ridden in Europe and I asked him to come along . Though nothing was ever official, I had been independently referring to each of them in conversation here in Macon as my "ex future sons in law". A trip with the two of them seemed like some sort of a meaningful theme.

Bonnieux

The town looked better in real life than in the movie.The hotel was perfect. The riding fabulous, as always in Provence, with little rain. We followed the tour on TV and waited for the stage up Mount Ventoux, which was within riding distance of our hotel. Luckily we learned the road up the mountain had been completely saturated with spectators who were camping for days. For the first time ever, the mountain portion of the race course was to be closed to all traffic, including bicycles, the entire day of the race. We easily altered our plan a bit and headed to the Giant the day before the race.We knew the atmosphere would be identical to our prior race day mountain rides. The the top 2/3 of the road would be lined with previously described partying fans.

I can still remember how good this baguette sandwich  was.
My favorite riddle in life is how is it that every baguette in France
is outstanding and I've not had a single outstanding  baguette in the States

Hanging out with the young guys presented only a few problems. They were faster on the bike, which I expected, but were a little slow in the morning. This was only an issue on our Mount Ventoux ride. We were an hour away by bike and the temperature was forecast to be around 95. Had I been with my contemporaries, we would have left at 6:00 AM and been to the top of the mountain before the real heat of the day. Unfortunately we left from the famous town of Bedoin at the start of the 32 km climb at noon, temp well above 90.

Typical Ride Day

Fields of lavender are common throughout Provence

Outside Gordes

We started out together riding the first 3-4 miles of a 3% incline at an easy chatting pace. When we arrived at the Forest, we were looking at a near 10% grade for almost 6 miles. The road was packed with fans and there was no room to even stop, much less turn around and head back. Once peddling, it was nonstop to the top of the mountain. The plan was to meet at the top and descend  together on the other side of the mountain, where there would be very little traffic and no spectators. There was no Plan B and I had to make it.

Just before the Forest

They were out of site in an embarrassingly short time. I was alone, in my smallest gear, max power output. Many years ago when I was a medical student at the University of Florida, I provided medical assistance for an experiment on marathon runners at a race.This was engineered by the famous Dr.Cade, inventor of Gatorade, and a  kidney professor there. The race started at 9:00 AM, but it was June in Gainesville..We discovered that ALL the runners we studied had a rectal temperature of 105° at 9, 18 and 27 miles.(They came into a tent at these distances for blood tests, sweat analysis, which was collected in a rubber examination glove they were wearing while running, as well as vital signs)

Well it was probably warmer here on Mount Ventoux than in Gainesville that June. Also the temperature was not steadily dropping when we ascended, as it does in our humid North Georgia mountains. Halfway through the famous Forest, I realized I was working harder in this type of heat, than I ever had previously done, in the 30 plus years I had been riding. Realizing that this was the oldest day of my life, I started to worry about dying of a heat stroke, as did the famous Tommy Simpson, in1967 when he was the #1 ranked professioanal rider in the world. He died during this race that year, near the top of the climb. A monument was erected on the side of the road at the spot of his death, one or two switchbacks from the peak.

I started to ruminate about the possibility of joining Mr Simpson's fate, and concluded this was not such a bad way to go, in fact a bit on the heroic side. I apologized to everyone I had ever crossed, which took several miles to cover and begged forgiveness. I pondered the various tunes I would have like played at my funeral.  There are several great ones by Tom Waits. Of course Sid Vicious'  My Way is the ultimate in your face version, but drips with a bitterness I don't have. I settled for David Bowie's  Space Oddity and began to softly dribble out the lyrics, assuming this would be reported to my wife in the event of my death, and she would subsequently make sure it was blasted on a nice sound system at the funeral

After the Forest I entered the usually very windy last 5 or 6 miles. Fortunately the wind was bearable and  a  slight change in the steepness allowed  me to shift to a bigger gear. A minimal temperature drop was just enough to feel comfortable.  At that point I was able to enjoy the ride. I knew I would make it. I took back all the above apologies and began passing a few  riders

We made to the peak and there was a store and a gazillion other riders. Most of Ventoux was heavily forested at one time but the timber was harvested for ship building beginning in the 12th century. The wood was considered superior for some reason. I suspect it was the tree's ability to withstand the constant winds. Venteux translates to "wind"  in French and it blows greater than 56 mph, 240 days of the year. The top is limestone giving it the appearance of being snow capped at all times.

It would have been impossible because of the crowds to go down the way we ascended. There are two other ways to get off the mountain. Neither is quite as long as the race course. Camiel demonstrated his superior descending skills by riding most of the first 2 miles of the descent with one hand on the bars and taking photos with the other. This  was obviously very fast but long enough that I was able to get into the kind of trance most downhill skiers experience when on a very long slope. The slightest lean changes your direction and you subconsciously shift your weight to glide through the turns with as little braking as possible. The rail is a joke; it's only purpose to serve as a marker for the search party as you sail over it at 50 mph into oblivion.

This is Ground Control to  Major Tom,
Your circuit's dead there's something wrong.
Can you hear me Major Tom ?
Can you hear me Major Tom ?

Major Tom:
Here am I floating on my my Ti bike..
far above the moon..
planet Earth is blue
and this I like to do.

Every small village has a fountain for drink or cool down 

After we "conquered" Mount Ventoux we had a nice victory dinner at the best restaurant in town, right across the street from our hotel. We ordered a bottle of red wine with a Mount Ventoux label and it was pretty good. We made a toast to this Giant of Provence: " Today we kicked your butt, tonight we drink your  blood"

The next day we met up with Chuck who was in the area with wife and youngest daughter Callie. He rented a clunker and we rode a short distance to a Category 3 climb to watch the race go by, leaving us enough time to make it to a small nearby town where we could find a bar with TV to watch the " big boys "duke it out up Ventoux.

Waiting for the race

The Peleton

That's Chuck with red shirt and you can see Armstrong (above) with the Astana jersey and dark socks, the last guy in the photo.This was his come back year at age 37. Despite no significant racing over the previous 3 years and one of the oldest guys ever to even show up for the Tour, he managed to come in third place and get on the podium in Paris.

The ex futures at dusk in Bonnieux
Are they discussing  "what could have been?"

ANNOUNCEMENT:  6/15/2012 HEADING WEST TODAY