Mont Ventoux

May 18, 2025

I was excited to ride up the Giant of Provence during our parental leave trip in Europe after watching classic Tour de France stages on it over the years and having been to the area before but without having a chance to ride it. On a beautiful Sunday with little wind, the family and I headed out to Bédoin. To make the most of my wife’s generous offer to watch the kids, I mapped out a route that would do the classic climb from Bédoin, then descend to Sault, through the Nesque Gorge, back to Bédoin, up to Malaucène, and then back to Avignon via Suzette. At about 95 miles and over 8,500 ft of climbing, I knew I couldn’t go 100% on the climb up Ventoux, but I still gave it a pretty good effort.

With the weather and being a Sunday, the road was full of cyclists enjoying this classic ascent. Many looked to be laboring with gears that didn’t go quite low enough for the 8.3% average grade. Thankfully, my rental Specialized Aethos had a 34! I started out a bit hard and backed off a touch to keep my heart rate in a more reasonable range as I got onto the steeper wooded slopes. That strategy worked pretty well as I still had plenty in the tank as I got above tree line and pushed up the iconic moonscape. 1 hour 40 minutes from. Bédoin felt like a pretty respectable time with an estimated wattage of 257!

From there, the descent to Sault was a dream on good pavement with lots of cyclists and sports cars heading up the other way. I got an amazing food truck pizza in Sault and then settled in for many more miles on beautiful terrain. The descent through the Nesque Gorge was amazing, with tunnels through the rock and a snaking road through the canyon. I think I saw only one car during that whole section.

The part from Bédoin to Malaucène was fabulous, with a gentle snaking climb in the middle. The col near Suzette was hot and my legs were far from fresh at that point, but I still did ok and enjoyed an awesome descent South through vineyards. From Beaumes-de-Venise the riding was less heroic, but still quite lovely. I finished up in Avignon 6 hours and 15 minutes later, with a little over an hour of stoppage time on top of that during the ride for food and drinks. What a wonderful area to ride a bike!

South Face on Aiguille du Moine

September 21, 2024

With our last weather window, Dale and I decided to get up high and stay the night in one of the huts. To mix things up from our other days at the Aiguille du Midi, we went up the Mer de Glace from Montenvers to the Couvercle Hut. With the recession of the glacier, the gondola keeps getting extended down and the walk up the Mer de Glace is increasingly broken up. The ladder system getting above the glacial moraine and past polished near-vertical slabs is a nearly comical exhibit of humanity adapting to climate change and overcoming obstacles. It’s not for the faint of heart!

We started our hike at about 2pm and arrived at the Couvercle Hut at about 5:15pm, which sounded similar to Dale’s prior approach there in the summer. We kicked back and enjoyed a lovely evening in the hut. It was quite the luxury to eat a multi-course meal, including a roasted filet mignon with mushrooms.

We got going before dawn, but not that early in the grand scheme of things. We left the hut somewhere around 5:30am. The mostly 4th-class nature of the route seemed to suggest that we’d be able to move reasonably quickly.

The snow to gain the route was reasonably steep for our approach shoes and aluminum crampons, but it went. We spent a few minutes investigating the wrong lick of snow to the climber’s right before realizing we were in the wrong spot and heading up higher to start on what felt to be more challenging rock climbing than either of us expected—probably slightly off route. It went and we found ourselves at a bolted belay before too long. From here, a bit more roped climbing through a steep gully system which was pretty snowy took us onto the exposed 3rd and 4th class ledges with cairns.

We scrambled on for a good ways before hitting the cut back and descent into a snowy gully. We stopped at the ridge crest for a bit here, contemplating our timing and the schedule needed to catch the gondola back down to Chamonix (which, if missed, would require us to walk down—not at all unreasonable and far from the intensity of most North Cascade descents). In the end, we decided that the additional scrambling to the summit wasn’t worth having to walk out and lose a casual last evening together, so we turned around here after soaking up the views. There was nothing technically stopping us—just time and priorities.

The descent was without incident, including the ladder down climb. We made it to the gondola with plenty of time to spare and enjoyed goblets of beer upon arriving in Chamonix to celebrate a lovely week together.

This was a fun, moderate route with stellar, up-close-and-personal views of the range throughout and a memorable trail and hut—a great experience.

Barbaresco to Barolo

September 19, 2024

When the weather turned sour in Chamonix, Dale and I considered our options and decided that riding bikes around Alba in Italy topped our list. We did a beautiful ride in the Aosta Valley on the way, enjoyed a wonderful meal in Torino, and had a low-key day in Alba checking out the local wineries and the sights while it rained. The weather looked better the next day and so we left Alba after a nice breakfast and cappuccinos just after 9:30am.

We headed clockwise up to Barbaresco first, enjoying the amazing climbs and scenery and taking a few minutes in the town itself to explore a bit. We also found the 2014 Giro d’Italia stage marker, imagining top-tier cyclists charging through these vineyard-covered hills with massive chainrings.

From Barbaresco, we went to Neive and enjoyed a cappuccino in the old town. We then pressed on through a number of hills to Diano d’Alba where we feasted on pizza for lunch. The rest of the ride to Barolo continued through magical terrain with continually jaw-dropping views. Many of the roads we took were single-lane with barely any car traffic.

In Barolo, we couldn’t not have some wine. An enchanting 2018 Albarella Barolo and lovely conversation entertained us for a solid half hour before climbing back on our steeds for the last few miles up to La Morra and back down to Alba.

It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site for a reason. Go there and ride your bicycle through it. You will not be disappointed.