Ventoux Night Session 2011

Video: Watching the Sun Rise: Mont Ventoux

By Will on June 12, 2011 Favorites, French Alps, Videos

The shortest but perhaps most fun “cyclosportive” I have ever done.

Philippe, Régis, Xavier, and I participated in the Ventoux Night Session.

The goal was simple: roughly 200 cyclists departing in different waves with the goal of all meeting at the top to watch the sunrise.

Good friends, legendary mountain, cold but perfect weather, as good as it gets.

A short video:

Régis at left:

Xavier, me, and Philippe:

Cycle Route 1038725 – via Bikemap.net

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"Mont Ventoux" Cycling dawn France night session sunrise

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Will

Happiest while cycling uphill.

16 Comments

Eric on June 13, 2011 1:46 pm

This must have been a great ride/expérience. Will, I wonder if this will be the start of a new type of cycling for you? Light on the head (good choice btw) and riding straight through the night…you are getting ready to join the ultra distance crowd I guess.

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Will on June 13, 2011 8:02 pm

Eric,

Yep, this could be a fun new hobby

Although since, I am afraid of the dark, you’ll have to join me. 🙂

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Emyr Williams on June 15, 2011 9:51 am

Very different! Must have been great to reach the summit! 🙂

I have a technical question – how do you generate the gradient graphs that you use on your website, are they made from the GPS tracks you collect?

Reply
Will on June 15, 2011 11:08 am

Hi Emyr,

I get the data from various sources depending on the climb: internet, books, magazines; or for the less famous stuff off my raw GPS data. I then manually make the charts using this software:

http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnigraphsketcher/

I prefer doing it myself versus copying other peoples graphs.

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Emyr Williams on June 15, 2011 1:00 pm

Hi Will,

Thanks for the tip, really appreciate the heads-up. I guess, to create the graphs you have to manually harvest the elevation data from the “gpx” files?

I and a friend have been scrabbling around on the web to find something that did it for us simply but as with most things there is no obvious solution. I’ll have a look at OmniGraphSketcher, I think it’s on the Mac AppStore.

Thanks once again and bonne route!

Emyr

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fptruedas on June 16, 2011 8:10 am

very pretty photos

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Nicholas on June 20, 2011 2:43 pm

Amazing, Will! I did climb Ventoux on my own (my family and I were in the region for a week of holidays), just one day before you. Started at 5:50 AM, so didn’t see the sunrise. But it was most beautiful (and very cold) nevertheless!
Nicholas

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