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Tormenting Mont Ventoux: Fata Morgana in road cycling

VOr a few weeks ago the Tour de France stopped at Mont Ventoux, you may remember. The professionals have ridden over this mighty mountain twice. Now, a few weeks later, I’m back again. The Ventoux has become an old confidante over the years, so often have we – friends, family – been here on racing bikes, so often have we stomped up these 1600 meters of altitude and arrived at the top exhausted and happy.

Now it’s terribly hot here again, as always in August. The brave who cycle up would do well to start early in the morning. And take water bottles with you, better one too many than one too few. Anyone who drinks too little up there and has possibly also exercised too little can experience wonderful things in this stony desert.

A friend, with whom I was often upstairs, swears to this day that he once looked a French fighter pilot in the eyes at close range just below the summit. That would be nothing special, but the fighter pilot did not sit on a racing bike, but in the cockpit of his Mirage, from where he nodded appreciatively to his friend.

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Now it is the case that the French air force actually flies to the lonely towering giant of Provence, the Ventoux, every now and then as a landmark, very loudly and quite deeply, but that a pilot from his cockpit … Well, the friend stays with it : The guy nodded, and how could he have done it other than appreciatively.

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