France

We started out on the 9 hour trip from Germany to France at 6am on Saturday 14th June. It was early but we had to stop in Switzerland to pick up Linda who had been on a three week exchange.

The House

We arrived at last in Entrechaux to find a really nice house with a pool and a direct view to Mont Ventoux, it even had a BMX track nearby but we didn't bring the mountain bikes.

Nice place to stay in, even with a pool! The mountain in the background is Mont Ventoux

The house was super nice, with a nice big flat screen TV to watch to the Soccer World Cup on, and nice rooms. One of the best things was going for a ride then jumping in the pool straight after!
The first ride we rode around the roads at the bass of Mont Ventoux. It turned out to be more than 100kms with a couple of nice short hills to stretch the legs on...

Bédoin
I persuaded the boys at last to go up Mont Ventoux, so we rode out to Bédoin. There are three routes up Mont Ventou, the first is the route that the Tour de France ascends on from Bédoin; the second is the route that the Tour de France descends on, from Malacène and the last from Sault.
The way from Bédoin is approxiamately 20km with and average grade of 7.43% and 1617m of altitude gained. It was not an easy climb and I had over half an hour to cool down waiting for the others to reach the top. Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos that day.
The descent was also cold and my arms started to shake with exhaustion and the cold, giving me the death wobbles going at around 60km/h. I decided to slow down and my hands were truly exhausted at the bottom after holding on the old timers (the 1985 road bike I am using) brakes all the way down.

Sault
It was 65kms into a road ride around the bass that Jo suggested that Jakob and I go up the back side of Mont Ventoux, the weather didn't look too bad so we agreed and started climbing from Sault. It wasn't very steep with and average grade of 4.4%. However we weren't so lucky and the rain kicked in about halfway up. I arrived at the top totally drenched and waited for 20 minutes, getting colder by the minute for Jakob to arrive. The way down was horrible, so cold that my jaw felt like a jack hammer (the shivers you get when you are cold but multiplied by 100). We had to keep on stopping because we only had thin riding rain jackets on and that was nowhere near enough to keep the wind from biting. By the time we got to the bottom my jaw muscles felt like I had chewed a pack of chewing gum as fast as I could without a break and I was truly tired. A warm shower was on the top of my list.


Avignon
We went into Avignon for a day so that they could show me a bit more of France than just the riding side. It was pretty cool to look around inside the castle that many Popes have lived in. In also managed to get a few good photos

The castle at Avignon

The view out across the city from the tower of the castle

Looking back into the city

After Avignon we went to have dinner/lunch at Pont du Gard, a famous Roman aqueduct. The swimming was awesome with many rocks to jump off, and I even managed to get a really nice photo.

Pont du Gard

Food
The food was really good with baguettes for breakfast lunch and dinner, and croissants of course for breakfast. As always there was many cheeses and meats and lots of other delicious things to eat. I even found myself thinking of home when we had steak, salad and potatos

Yummm :)

Exploring
On Friday - the second last day, we went exploring up a small river. We had to walk in the river because the sides were to steep, but that was also a bonus, a nice way to cool off on a hot day. It was heaps of fun with many cool little discoveries made such as a tiny pool that was very deep and rocks where the water ran off them to make little waterfalls of showers. A very nice way to relax after a week of bike riding (but I wasn't quite finished with the bike yet).


From Malacène
After coming back around midday, we went up Mont Ventoux for the last time, this time from Malacène. It was hot and halfway up I realised I was nearly out of water, but managed to make it to the top. The climb starts off flatter than from Bédoin, but makes up for it later with around 4km in the middle with an average of 12%! With my lowest gear a 42t - 28t the climbing was hard. I had started out a little bit fast so by the time I got to the top my legs felt like I had gone up Black Mountain a few more times than necessary.
When I was waiting I managed to get two really nice panoramas from the top.

Looking down the road from Malacène

And looking down the other side and the road from Bédoin

The End of an Awesome Trip
Unfortunately we had to go home after spending a week riding, watching the World Cup, reading and relaxing in France...
We go back to School tomorrow for the last three weeks before I come home, I'm sure it will pass by in a flash.