Mont Ventoux by motorcycle

Three roads, three different days

Ventoux is unusual in having three complete climbs, so you can go up one side and come down another without repeating a metre of road. Bedoin to the summit and back down to Malaucene is the classic combination and probably the best one on a bike. Each climb runs 21 to 26 km (13 to 16 miles) and takes roughly half an hour at a sensible pace.

The Sault side deserves more attention than it gets. It is the longest but the least steep, it crosses the lavender plateau that flowers around late June and early July, and it carries a fraction of the traffic. From Chalet Reynard upwards it shares the road with the Bedoin climb, so you get the scree section whichever way you come.

The mistral is not a legend

The mountain is named after the wind, and that is the one thing to take away from this page. Gusts at the summit regularly pass 100 km/h (62 mph) and the observatory has recorded far higher. On a motorcycle there is no negotiating with that: above a set threshold the summit road is closed, and when it is open a crosswind on the exposed scree can move you across your lane.

The habit to build is checking the forecast for the summit rather than the one for Carpentras or Avignon down in the valley. Clear blue sky on the plain with the mistral established is exactly the pattern that makes the top unpleasant and genuinely risky on two wheels. It is a separate check, worth doing on the morning of the ride rather than the night before.

Cyclists and the winter closure

Ventoux is a cycling pilgrimage on the scale of Alpe d Huez. In season you pass riders continuously on all three climbs, many of them at their limit and holding a wandering line. Pass wide and slowly, and do not open the throttle alongside: the noise startles people and unsettles them.

The summit road closes for winter, broadly November to April, with reopening dates driven by snow and wind rather than the calendar. Chalet Reynard usually stays reachable longer than the top. Closures also happen at short notice in summer when the wind exceeds the safety threshold, so a booked date is never a guarantee of a summit.

Making a full day of it

Up and down Ventoux takes about two hours. What turns that into a day is everything around it: the Dentelles de Montmirail, the Gorges de la Nesque, the Sault plateau and the lanes around Vaison-la-Romaine are quiet, decently surfaced and largely ignored by people who came only for the summit.

The Nesque in particular belongs in the plan: twenty kilometres of road cut into the cliff between Villes-sur-Auzon and Monieux, with very little traffic outside weekends. Add that and a lap of the Dentelles and you have a 200 km (125 mile) day without leaving the Vaucluse.

Getting there, and riding in France

Ventoux sits in the Vaucluse, roughly 950 km (590 miles) south of Calais. From the Channel Tunnel or a Dover ferry that is a long day and a half of autoroute, or two comfortable days if you leave the A7 early and come across the Ardeche. Portsmouth to Caen or Le Havre removes a good part of the northern plain. If you would rather fly and rent, Marseille is the practical airport at about 100 km (62 miles) out; Avignon and Nimes are closer but have far fewer flights.

Provence in July and August is hot, crowded and windy in the wrong way. May, June, September and early October give you an open summit road, warm afternoons and much less traffic. Stay in Bedoin, Malaucene or Sault rather than on the coast: the mountain rewards an early start, and the first climb of the day at eight in the morning is a different road from the same one at three in the afternoon.

• Ride on the right, and watch for priorite a droite at unmarked junctions in villages: a road joining from your right can legally have priority.
• Speed limits: 130 km/h on motorways (110 in the rain), 80 or 90 km/h on rural single carriageways depending on the department, 50 km/h in built-up areas.
• CE-approved gloves and a helmet carrying reflective patches are compulsory in France, and you must carry a high-visibility vest.
• A UK photocard licence is accepted as it is. US, Canadian and Australian licences should be carried with an International Driving Permit.
• The autoroutes south are tolled and take cards at the barrier. Rural fuel stations keep short hours and many close on Sundays, so fill up in Carpentras or Malaucene rather than counting on the plateau.

Planning the ride with Waver

Ventoux itself needs no navigation, you can see it from fifty kilometres away. The planning that pays off is the rest of the day: linking the Nesque, the Dentelles and the lavender plateau into one loop instead of three separate out-and-back runs. The web planner lets you draw that on a big screen, with a winding-roads routing mode and GPX import if you already have tracks from elsewhere; save the route and its page gives you the elevation profile.

The route then syncs to the phone for turn-by-turn voice guidance on Android, records the ride with the statistics afterwards, and can be shared with whoever is coming with you; on an iPhone, the planner and your saved routes work in the browser. Two limits worth knowing before you rely on it here: there is no offline mode yet, so the phone needs coverage on the day, and there is no weather layer on the route, which on this mountain is exactly the check you cannot skip. Waver is free while it is in open beta.