The Full Monty (Ventoux)

Every cyclist has his or her nemesis - the one thing that really brings you to your knees. For me, it's climbing. Oh yes, I'm a lot better at it than when I started, and before I had lost almost 20 kilos of lovingly accumulated blubber - but it still isn't my forte. So I decided to do something about it...

The cunning plan was this - use my indoor smart trainer and the handy Rouvy app to simulate climbing one of the epic ascents of the Tour de France, and keep working at it until I could make the summit in one go. How hard could it be? Ok - no need to answer that...

First question - which climb to pick? Well, I went for a blend of cycling romance, major ascent and long distance - and ended up with Mont Ventoux. I confess, I avoided anything with completely stupid gradients so that I could stand at least some chance of not killing myself - and in practice went for the less common route up Ventoux from the small town of Malaucene - just because it was a little longer.

Each time I try, I start from the same spot in the town and aim to go a little higher up the mountain. Speed and power don't really matter (though they are useful to note, as I'll explain below), and I quickly seek shelter in the lowest possible gear I can find... but the object is always to climb a little further each time before my feeble mind or body decide to throw in the towel.

Rouvy is a great help with this - it is an app that links to your smart trainer and heart rate monitor, and presents you with a genuine video of the climb with stats and imagery superimposed - such as other riders on the climb at the same time. Rouvy tracks all this in the cloud so it can show you other poor souls suffering the same climb as you right on your screen - Fred-1968 has popped up a few times on the climb so far!

Example Rouvy screen, with Fred-1968 pushing on up ahead

I first tried the climb around 2 months ago, and gasped my way up 682 feet of ascent before I surrendered and fell off my virtual bike. Since that time, I have flogged myself up the same climb around 7 times - and it has certainly been an interesting, if not always enjoyable experience! What have I discovered so far? Well - here's a few things:

• Pacing and managing your heart rate seem to be major factors determining how far you can go. In the early days I was pushing too hard, and burned myself out far too soon. Now I'm keeping to a reasonable threshold heart rate, I find I can carry on far longer.

• Climbing is very much a mind game - the knowledge that I have climbed a certain distance before is a great motivator to stop me giving up before I reach my previous target - and once I'm there, the enthusiasm to carry on a bit further is really powerful.

• Seeing the profile of the climb helps a lot - especially if you know that it will get easier in just a short distance - and it is surprising how a 7% gradient, that you might normally think is a bit steep, can seem like a nice rest after a few minutes at 12%+

• Having someone to compete with, or just to ride with - even when they are virtual like my good buddy Fred-1968 (though we have never met or communicated so far, he could be a Martian for all I know) - is a big bonus and helps keep you going.

• Radio 4 and a window to look out of to see the world going by are another couple of great distractions, especially when you are going further and the ride can be 1hr or more just turning your legs on the trainer. Yes, the ride video is great, but when you have done it many times you start to obsess about tiny quirks such as the point where you pass the bloke walking down the road, swinging his camera....

• But best of all, you learn that you can actually do far more than you thought would be possible - and maybe reaching the top might not be a pipe dream after all...

Anyway - on the last ride I reached the half way mark - vertically that is - so I can now climb nearly 2,600 feet, assuming the trainer is a reasonable simulation of the real world and you don't worry about altitude effects and weather. Here I am, a weary avatar creeping past the virtual half way point:

Half way!

When I started back in February, I thought I might reach this point by sometime in August... so it has been nice to learn that technique helps so much and climbing isn't only a fitness game. I'll come back and update this blog when I've finally reached the summit - fingers crossed!

Success at last

It has taken just over a year (with a few breaks, I admit) - but on 23rd March 2023 I finally dragged my weary body over the summit of the fabled (if virtual) Mont Ventoux. I would like to think I would have made it here earlier, if I had not fiddled with the settings on my trainer app to increase the effort required for the climb (I thought I was increasing the realism of the on screen display - doh)... Once I'd corrected that, the final attack on the summit was on in earnest. I confess, it hasn't been an easy challenge, but there's a lot of satisfaction in finally getting to the top. One day I'll have to try to for real... but in the meantime, there are plenty of other virtual summits to try!

Made it at last!

Oh, and I wonder - did Fred-1968 ever make it up here too? We will probably never know... but I hope he did.