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Showing posts from September, 2012

TWO-THIRDS A MADMAN

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The streets of Avignon in mid-September are spotless - thanks, not to the zealous attentions of municipal road sweepers, but to the unbelievably violent winds which had been scouring the roads and fields clean since we'd arrived. The fabled mistral had taken hold of Provence and was shaking it heartily by the scruff of the neck. Not the best conditions in which to be preparing to cycle up and down Mont Ventoux by three different routes in the same day. But that's exactly what I was doing. My goal was to become a member of the Club des Cinglés du Mont Ventoux  (Club of the Madmen of Mont Ventoux), the same challenge I'd produced a short  film about in 2009. This time I was going to be suffering in the saddle rather than observing from the roadside. Our  gite  in the village of Mazan was almost in the shadow of the 'bald mountain'.   I could see Ventoux, looming ominously in the near distance, every morning as soon as I stepped out of the front d