This weekend on Mt. Ventoux:

Triathlon Forum
1

Note received from a friend this morning:

“Ce week-end je me suis “amusé” à monter 10 fois le Ventoux en 22h42. je bats le précédent record de 1h 08.”

Translation: This weekend I “amused” myself by climbing Mt. Ventoux ten times in 22 hours and 42 minutes, beating the previous record by an hour and eight minutes."

  • Dominique Briand

The above time includes the descents . . . Dominique’s finished PBP in the first 6 finishers (1200km in 40 hours) and is in training for RATA. He looks a bit like Mel Brooks. An understated guy completely off the radar, whose deeds speak volumes about him.

What Dominique failed to mention because he doesn’t know it is that this is a new world record for total vertical gain within 24 hours. As far as I can recall the last number was about 14500m in 24 hours – this was about 16000m, or 53000’ vertical feet. Anyone know of any source to confirm this?

2

Ironguide…let me get this straight. This dude beat the old 10XVentoux record by one hour and 8 minutes with a total ride time of 22:42. What amazes me, in addition to the total vertical, is the fact that on no sleep this guy would be descending Ventoux on the verge of bonking in sheer darkness. I remember watching the TdF in ~ 1995 and Indurain locking up his rear wheel on the Ventoux descent and nearly putting himself into the trees !

Did this fellow do 10XVentoux from the same route, or did he use all three approaches ?

Dev

3

Ironguide,

As a follow up to my previous post, if a poser agegrouper such as myself was to attempt 3XVentoux using each of the three ascent approaches, how long do you think the total ride would take ? Assuming an average of 1:40 per climb and 40 min descent, is 7 hours reasonable ?

Dev

4

“I could do that, I just don’t want to.”
Bart Simpson
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5

Paul,

Vertical gain from Mallaucene and Bedoin are both roughly 1600m. From Sault it’s a pretty easy 850m, but longer. So total is 4050m of climbing. If it doesn’t get too hot out, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to make it in under 7 hours. Why is another question though . . . :slight_smile: After emailing Dominique, it turns out he used all three routes so his vertical gain was “only” 14200m or so. Have fun!