Ventoux

This is excerpted from Need for the Bike, translated by Allan Stoekl and published by University of Nebraska Press:

An extended meditation on cycling as a practice of life, the book recalls a country doctor who will not anesthetize the young Fournel after he impales himself on a downtube shifter, speculates about the difference between animals that would like to ride bikes (dogs, for instance) and those that would prefer to watch (cows, marmots), and reflects on the fundamental absurdity of turning over the pedals mile after excruciating mile. At the same time, Fournel captures the sound, smell, feel, and language of the reality and history of cycling, in the mountains, in the city, escaping the city, in groups, alone, suffering, exhausted, exhilarated.

There are plenty of passes higher than the Ventoux. Every cyclist knows the sacred monsters with their holy of holies and their landscapes: the tunnel of the Galibier; the lonely wasteland of the Izoard; the last two stiffling kilometers of the Restefonds; the switchbacks of the Alpe-d 'Huez; the badly packed earth of the Gavia; or the terrible right turn of the Saint-Charles bridge in the Iseran. . . So many legendary places where cyclists head, like pilgrims.

The Ventoux is alone. Sitting on a plain. It overlooks no valley, it leads nowhere. Its only purpose is to be climbed.

It is its own climate and country. It has its own specific fauna, processionary caterpillars and beetles, and its flora, villous Greenland poppies and Spitzberg saxifrage. It defies the wind, and on days of heavenly grace, it offers up an immense panorama.

You never climb the same Ventoux wice. Every cyclist has a memory of a glorious ascent. The one I did with my sister one delightful morning, in Provençal harmony and the north wind. The one Jean-Noël Blanc did on the closed road, between two walls of snow, in a Ventoux his alone.

In the same way, everyone can remember leaden days when, suddenly, for no reason, the bike freezes, blocked on the asphalt. Those days of cold sweat, days when the fruit rots in your pockets and when, very quickly, a dull anguish seizes your heart.

On one of those ugly days I had used up my water reserves half-way up the north side. It was blazing hot, the heat of a stormy August. I noticed a water spout on the side of the road and ran over to fill my water bottles. The dripping faucet was unapproachable, black with a swarming cluster of wasps and insects.

It was only ten in the morning. Already the air was melting, and my bottles stayed empty.

There are no more landmarks in these nightmare climbs. Your eyes stay glued on your front wheel, and it's your innards you're staring at there, without really seeing them.The friend who was climbing so slowly down below passes you. In slow motion you cut a mule trail in the straight grain of the road. Cars honk their horns. You don't even think about going back down. You're not thinking about anything any more.

The Ventoux has no in-itself. It's the greatest revelation of your-self. It simply feeds back your fatigue and fear. It has total knowledge of the shape you're in, your capacity for cycling happiness, and for happiness in general. It's yourself you're climbing. If you don't want to know, stay at the bottom.