THE BOLD MOUNTAIN
The biggest innovation of the 2021 Tour was a double ascent of Mont Ventoux on stage 11.Procycling was there to witness a day where Jumbo-Visma tamed the Giant of Provence
Writer Kate Wagner Image Kristof Ramon
Who knows how that day on Mont Ventoux would have gone had Jack Haig and Geraint Thomas and Primož Roglic not crashed out of contention? Had it not felt like the rest of the race was simply a coronation for Pogacar after stage 8? Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard may have well been pulling for their leader, disposable and yet indisposable, shielding him from the wind, all lined out in their wasp colours, as the threat of attacks loomed.
Instead, on the day, they find themselves in unusual conditions. Van Aert, not known for being a particularly gifted climber - though he is more than competent - is perhaps among the least likely candidates to contest a Ventoux stage, much less a double Ventoux stage, and yet the man in the Belgian tricolore is pedalling away among the eight-man remnants of a breakaway, including slighter contenders like Kenny Elissonde and Julian Alaphilippe and, most dangerously, Bauke Mollema.Vingegaard, meanwhile, is in one of his favourite places: in the wheel of Tadej Pogacar.
The cards are in play.
MOUNTAIN TENSION
When I step out of the car further up the mountain, the patchwork carpet of Provence is revealed to me in greens and golds and lavenders.The air is thin and the wind pulls strands of hair out of the bun knotted in the back of my head.Around me is barrenness, the bald mountain, taupe rocks crumbling beneath my shoes until I find steady footing on the inky slick of asphalt snaking around in tight curves.The only colour on the side of the mountain comes from the collage of fans clamouring at the roadside, often with bikes, their skin pink from the too-close sun. Flags wave,wine is poured, the silence of the coronavirus times is stitched up by laughter and excitement. The race is coming, the arms of the world open for it.
Mollema and Elissonde chase for Trek-Segafredo, but Van Aert has flown
Images: Tim de Waele (main), Michael Steele/Getty Images.
Ventoux is a spectacular place, empty from the long scars of an illthought-out naval deforestation, but not devoid of life. I count at least 10 or 15 different types of flowers here that poke out in small tufts of purple and yellow, a testament to nature’s resilience. Still, it is impossible to stand on the side of the road and not think that it is insane that people race bikes up here. The length of the climb seems unfathomable. Many have suffered here, and the service station at the summit, iconic in its functional, inter-war architecture, serves as a kind of cathedral to strife. Enshroud in passing fog, men rush by, their eyes tilted upwards in prayer.