A few weeks ago the Tour de France stopped at Mont Ventoux, you may remember.

The professionals drove 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 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.

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.

There are alternatives

Nothing against the occasional mirage, a mirage in road cycling. More amazing things have surely flown through the heads of the heroes of the Tour de France than a fighter plane, but this year we just let the mountain of mountains be mountain. I don't like to say it, but there are actually alternatives if the bones and the condition are of the opinion that the driveway is currently not a good idea, almost a refusal to work. And indeed: there are alternatives.

A hotel in a small town called Crillon-le-Brave, for example, with an incredible panoramic view of the landscape and the Ventoux. Jean-Baptiste manages the twelve rooms of this fabulous hotel, and his name doesn't promise too much. There is even a telescope in the common room, filigree aimed at the summit of the Ventoux. If you look through it, you can almost look into the tired eyes of the cyclists upstairs. And who knows, with a little luck you might even see a fighter jet up close from a distance, a pilot, a nod, appreciative. The cyclists up there, I know they deserve it.