Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Who-ooo are you...Ventoux, Ventoux?

Since I announced this nonsense to the world I have people stopping to ask me*,
"What is this Mont Ventoux Challenge of which you speak? Do you have any sponsorship links?". Well, I'll tell you, and I hope you're sitting comfortably:

- There are three roads up to the summit at 6300 feet and to complete this challenge you need to ride each climb twice in the same calendar day. So that's 6 x 14 miles at an average gradient of 9%...same as cycling from Preston to Carlisle...up a 9% incline. Looks like someone's got an early start, hah-hah-d'oh!

- The total amount of cycling is 170 miles and the total amount of climbing is 29,500 feet. Mount Everest stands at 29,029 feet. The only good news that I can take from this is that half of those 170 miles are downhill. You can't exactly relax though, especially given that the first descent will be in the dark...I have been warned about various nocturnal animals darting out in front of you. Oh deer.


- The weather will have a big old say in how kind the climbs will be. The highest recorded wind speed at the summit is 200 mph, although since I gleaned that 'fact' from Wikipedia it may not bear scrutiny, hah-hah!
Scratch that: just checked and unfortunately it does. Also, we can expect it to be a f**king oven once the sun rises, so that will be nice! Must not fixate on Kronenbourg 1664 or similar.

Above the tree-line there ain't nothing going on. Except the climb...still, looks nice doesn't it?

- Last year Chris Froome was on his way to winning the Tour de France and finished a stage on top of Ventoux. The lanky so-and-so absolutely stormed the 14 miles and 5000 feet in 59 minutes. Each climb will take me about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Not expecting any calls from Sir Dave Brailsford!


It is fantastic to see donations for Cancer Research already, so a really big thank you to those who have dug deep.
As per previous years I will donate £1 for every £5 raised: if you can select Gift Aid too on the JustGiving pages then we are on to a winner! The links are over on the right and also just below...cheers!

(*complete lie.)

To support CANCER RESEARCH UK please click on this...thanks!

To help the The ROYAL BRITISH LEGION please click on this!


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Location: On a bike. Wesham, Preston, Lancashire PR4 3DS, UK

4 comments:

  1. Andy Wickham aka Le Tracteur3 June 2014 at 20:10

    Loving the video of the descent - great memories! The Bedoin descent is a bit more technical - not sure how you and your vertigo will get on with it :-)

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  2. Simon Nicholl3 June 2014 at 20:38

    I hate that description 'technical': or more accurately I hate what it really means...that you cannot really let it go and cane it. Don't particularly want overheating wheel rims again, hah-hah-ouch!

    ReplyDelete
  3. martin.aylward4 June 2014 at 20:14

    170 miles in a day is bad enough let alone the 85 miles uphill at 10%. Hope you're getting in the interval training this time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Simon Nicholl5 June 2014 at 10:42

    Thanks for the top sponsorship, Guv'! Intervals? As in, go slow for a bit then go very slow then back up to slow. And repeat many times? All over it...

    ReplyDelete

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