Dangerous liaison

Just before three in the morning in May 2015, a weary Betty Kals set off from Bédoin village to begin her eighth successive ascent of Mont Ventoux. It was snowing at the summit and, as she entered the 22nd hour of climbing and descending the Giant of Provence, her fatigue was overwhelming.

Her world record-breaking bid for the greatest altitude gain by a female cyclist was already a success after her seventh ascent, yet despite the cold and dark, the Belgian had wanted to carry on, to climb even more.

The cyclo-tourists and holiday makers who’d ridden alongside her and applauded her through the balmy afternoon of the previous day were long gone, tucked up in their beds in the hotels and gîtes scattered across the Vaucluse hills of Provence.

At dusk, a cold Mistral, the infamous wind that howls down the Rhône valley, had started whipping viciously across the southern slopes of the Giant. As she rode into the depth of the Provençal night, and upwards, into the dark forest at the foot of the climb, the temperatures plummeted and an icy rain began to fall.

Kals’ endurance ride had been made all the more demanding by her discovery, the day before, that to break the record, she’d be required to also descend by bike and not, as planned, in the warmth of a support car, where she could eat and rest.

“I was supposed to do nine climbs by bike and nine descents in the car,” she recalled. “But