Looking at the results of "Les routes du ventoux", on
http://www.velo101.com/cyclosport/calendrier.asp
I just discovered that an ex(?)-Komer, Alan Favell, had entered the
race. I had chosen the 151 km course, he was on the 101 km one.
In fact we must have been almost side by side climbing the Ventoux as
No 216, who finished just a couple minutes after you Alan, was
climbing next to me towards the top!
By doing the shorter race you missed the joy of climbing the "Col de
l'homme mort" in the rain. I could have used some help at that point
as I had to do 50 km all by myself, including the terrible stretch
against the wind around the plateau d'Albion and the return to Sault.

Cheers
François




>Francois, I noticed that you have a 38 inner chain ring rather than the
>usual 39. Why did you make that choice?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Francois Siohan [mailto:francois.siohan@...]
>Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 1:27 AM
>To: kom_@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [kom_] VENTOUX Climbing
>
>Alan Favell wrote:
>
>>Francois, do you happen to know what would be good age group times for
>>climbing Ventoux? What would be a good time for a male in the 40-49 group
>>or the 50-59 group?
>---------
>Alan, you already got an answer about the starting point from Brian .
>About the time now.
>If you have the Ventoux profile from the Atlas des cols in front of you,
>you see that the distance from Bédoin to the top is 21.5 km.
>
>The first 5.8 or 5.9 km are a succession of "false flat" stretches around
>2-3% and 6-7% inclines.
>On 29 sept 2002, the "Routes du Ventoux" event i entered started between
>Bédoin and Flassan and we rejoined the D974 road (coming from D19a) at km
>3.8 or 3.9 and an altitude of 450 to 455 meters near Ste Colombe. Let's
>call that time 0
>
>After 1.3 km at 6% and 3'55"we reached Les Bruns at about 525 m.
>The road flattens there for about 800m , may be 2 %.
>Anyway, the real climb starts in St Esteve - 5.8 to 5.9 km after Bédoin at
>an altitude of ( according to some sources) 541 m. The road turns left
>sharply and you hit a good 10% incline. Then " c'est chacun pour soi"
>The pack reached that point at T=5'47"
>
>>From there to the top you have 1368m over 15.6km
>Best Pro times are around 46 minutes (Pantani 2000)
>Vaughters, in his 1999 D.L. TT probably did it in about 45 min.
>As for myself on 29.9.2002 it took me 77'38" , i.e. 1 h 17:38
>
>I tried to climb at a constant effort, watching the heart rate. When the
>road steepens your heart tends to climb higher, so i slowed down to come
>back to my target heart rate.
>After Chalet Reynard the gradient is considerably less for a while.
>So I went from 38:25 to 38:23-21, even 38:19 for a while.
>Although i accelerated there and passed most of the people who had been
>climbing just ahead of me, i was surprised the next day when i saw how much
>slower i had been in altitude gain per hour on that second part compared to
>the first : around 980 meters/hour against about 1100m/h!
>
>I assume that you will mostly time yourself over those last 15.6 km.
>
>>From Bédoin to the top, Vaughters in 99 did 56'50".
> Now, how do i go from there to the answer to your question?
>
>I know that Mourier, when he was a contender for 1st place in the Marmotte
>about 10-15 years ago had some sort of record of 1h 09 min from Bédoin to
>the top.
>My guess is that this is "equivalent" to 45 min on the Grimpée de l'alpe.
>
>So basically, to get a time estimate on Ventoux I multiply the grimpée
>time by 1.533
>In my own case in 2002 that gives 1.533 times 58:47 = 1 h 30min, which
>seems reasonable, although 1 h 32 might be closer to the truth ( adding 9
>min for the first 3.9 km with 150m altitude gain not covered by 29 sept
>race).
>
>Best 40-49 years in 2002 Grimpée was 50:20
> hence equivalent Ventoux = 77:10
>
>Best 50-59 years in 2002 Grimpée was 53:28
> hence equivalent Ventoux = 82:00
>
>Best >60 in grimpée 2002 was 58:47
> hence equivalent Ventoux = 90:00
>
>Please do not read too much in these numbers. However they will be useful
>targets for you I believe.
>-------
>PS on 29.9.2002 i timed myself at each kilometer marker that i saw. I can
>post those times if you are interested. They are probably a better
>indication of the difficulty of the various sections than the %ages.
>Enjoy Provence and Ventoux, not to mention Caritoux' wine.
>Double cheers
>François