No flats, just uphills

Today Glenn and I circumnavigated the mountain in a clockwise direction. We went through portions of three different departements (Vaucluse and Drome and Rhone-Alpilles) and countless towns, riding 101 km from Beaumont de Ventoux through Entrechaux - Mollans sur Ouveze (best croissants yet) - Pierrelongue-Eygalieres-Montbrun les Bains (where there is a 17th century stone postal relay station for sale that I have been keeping my eye on) - Aurel - Sault - Flassan - Bedoin and then home.

I was quite surprised to discover that it is possible to gain more elevation (and repeatedly lose it) riding around rather than up the mountain. Then once we were back we read in a little guidebook that one leg of our trip (a 9 km downhill) was not recommended, because of the narrowness of the particular road and the bumpiness of the pavement. That kind of thing makes a person (even this person) feel a bit rattly in their bones and long for a climb. I think that I will choose tomorrow's route.

The scenery was as usual, magnificent. In addition to the landscape, we had a bird's-eye view from a cafe in Bedoin of all the cyclists and all their fancy European bikes as they descended Mt. Ventoux via that route. We had some culinary highlights as well. There were the delicious breakfast-of-champions croissants mentioned above, which we consumed on the terrace of a very authentic espresso-tabac-newsagents on the bridge in Mollans-sur-Ouveze. It was just as well we hit that place at the beginning as they had those old-fashioned squatting toilets, which I am not sure I would have been able to negotiate at the end of the ride -- particularly in cycling shoes -- teflon cleats and porcelain perches are not a good combination I think. 16km from the end we had lunch in Bedoin at the Portail de L'Olivier. Although we ate somewhat lightly given there was yet another climb ahead (spaghetti with pesto for Glenn and nice salad for me with tapenade tartines and jambon cru as well as an assortment of vegetables), the table of, yes, Belgians (they are everywhere this year) next to us had some delicious looking roasted meats and frites served to them.