France · Alps
Mont Ventoux
The Beast of Provence. Its bare, white limestone summit and relentless exposure to wind and heat have created cycling's most feared mountain.
- Length
- 21.5 km
- Avg gradient
- 7.6%
- Max gradient
- 12%
- Elevation gain
- 1,617 m
- Summit
- 1,909 m
- Hairpins
- 10
Versants
- From Bédoin — 21.5 km at 7.6% (max 12%)
- From Malaucène — 21.2 km at 7.4% (max 12%)
- From Sault — 25.7 km at 4.4% (max 11%)
History
Mont Ventoux's reputation was set on 13 July 1967, when British rider Tom Simpson collapsed and died near the summit during Stage 13 of the Tour de France. Simpson had been ill with stomach trouble earlier in the race; the post-mortem found amphetamines and alcohol in his system, a combination that proved fatal in combination with the heat and the effort of the climb. His death is the single most consequential moment in the mountain's cycling history — it directly led to the introduction of mandatory doping controls, first used at the 1968 Giro, Tour and Summer Olympics.
A granite memorial stands about a kilometre below the summit, on the spot where Simpson fell. Riders still stop there — it's one of the few places on any Tour climb where the race's history and its unfinished reckoning with doping sit in the open air together.
The 'Giant of Provence' earns the nickname on its own terms, too: a treeless, white-scree summit that looks lunar rather than alpine, exposed to wind that regularly beats anything else the Tour climbs. It's been part of the race on and off since the 1950s, and every return reopens the same conversation about Simpson.