Vince Gee

A rose is a rose by any other name (or something like that).

Yesterday Tony (Trek Travel on loan to us) and I drove from Kortrijk to here at Crillion Le Brave. On the way we had to stop by our team service course to get some supplies. This drive took most of the day as we left Kortrijk at about 8:45 am and arrived at about 9:00 PM.
Today I took a rare bike ride because we have no one here but us two as of now. At noon or so our first guest are to arrive. So we decided to go for a short 90 minute spin. Well, it really was not a spin but more of a grind.
From our Hotel it was only 4 k to the city of Besoin. From there the road went up and up and up. Basically we took road D 974. It is a departmental road. The roads here in France are all coded. Roads have a letter and a color to denote the type. A letter “A” road is in a blue background is an Auto Route and is the fastest (freeway/Interstate/Toll road). A letter “N” road is in a green background and is National Road and is sort of a smaller highway and has roads intersecting directly. A letter “D” is in a yellow background and is a Departmental Road and basically a very small rural road.
So today we rode mostly the D974 which again went up and up and up. I took it up for 11 k on top of the 4 k we rode to get there. We turned around because our time was up and we had to get back to the hotel even though there was still 10 k more to climb.
Here is Tony and I at the base of the departmental road “D 974” Also known as Mont. Ventoux.

CClinton

Owner of Promechanics.com and long time professional race mechanic.