Tomorrow, for the first time in its modern history, the Tour de France Femmes climbs Mont Ventoux. Stage 7 — 146.8km from La Voulte-sur-Rhône, finishing on the summit — has been the stage everyone circled since the route reveal. Marlen Reusser defends a 12-second yellow jersey lead over Demi Vollering on terrain that’s about as far from last week’s racing as it gets.

That’s not a small gap, and it’s not a small mountain. The categorized ascent from Bédoin runs 15.7km at 8.8% average gradient, climbing roughly 1,380 vertical meters with almost no flat ground to recover on. No punchy ramps followed by valleys. No second wind on a descent. Just one long, unbroken effort that takes strong amateurs somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes to complete — longer for most of us.

That’s the part worth stopping on. We just spent an entire spring classics series teaching you to pace repeated short efforts — the Kwaremont and Paterberg twice each, thirty cobbled sectors spaced across six hours. Ventoux asks a completely different question. There’s no second climb to save watts for. There’s no valley to recover in. You get one continuous hour-plus of climbing, and the only pacing decision that matters is how hard to go in the first twenty minutes.

Most amateurs get that decision wrong. Here’s how not to.

Quick Verdict: Pacing a Long Sustained Climb

Factor	Amateur Default	Correct Approach
First 15-20 minutes	100-110% FTP, adrenaline-driven	82-88% FTP, deliberately restrained
Middle third	Fading, chasing lost time	Steady, same power as the start
Final third	Survival mode, massive fade	Slight negative split if legs allow
Power variability	High — surges and recoveries	Low — flat, boring, controlled
Common failure point	25-35 minutes in	Rare if paced correctly

Race date: August 7, 2026 Stage 7 distance: 146.8km, La Voulte-sur-Rhône to Mont Ventoux The lesson: On a climb with no relief, the only mistake that matters is the one you make in the first fifteen minutes

Why This Is a Different Pacing Problem Than Flanders or Roubaix

Repeated short climbs reward a specific skill: restraint on early efforts so you have matches left for the decisive one. We covered that at length with the Kwaremont-Paterberg sequence — go 95-105% FTP on the first pass, save the fireworks for the last one.

Ventoux doesn’t work that way. There’s no “last one.” There’s just the one, and it’s an hour long. You can’t bank energy for a later effort that doesn’t exist. The entire climb is the effort. Pace it wrong at minute 15 and you don’t recover by minute 45 — you’re still paying for it at the summit.

This is closer to what we covered with the double Alpe d’Huez climbs coming later in the men’s Tour than anything from the spring classics. Alpe d’Huez is 13.8km at 8.1%, roughly 50-70 minutes for a strong amateur. Ventoux from Bédoin is longer and steeper — 15.7km at 8.8% — and comes without hairpins to break the rhythm into digestible chunks. It’s a straight, relentless grind. On THEMOVE podcast this week, Lance Armstrong called it “the hardest climb in the country,” adding: “Even when it is not scorching hot, it is still like an oven.” He also pointed out what makes it different from a switchback climb — no hairpins to break the rhythm: “Ventoux is one straight road going upwards. There is no mercy.” That’s a former racer talking about racing it, but the pacing lesson underneath applies just as much to your Saturday club ride up whatever hour-long climb lives near you.

The Three Sections of Bédoin (And Why They Break Riders Differently)

Ventoux from Bédoin isn’t one uniform gradient. It’s three distinct climbs stitched together, and each one punishes a different pacing mistake.

Kilometers 0-6 (through the forest, moderate): The gradient here sits in the 7-9% range but feels manageable because you’re fresh and shaded. This is where amateurs make their first error — the legs feel good, the trees keep you cool, and it’s tempting to ride 5-10% over your planned number because nothing hurts yet.

Kilometers 6-14 (the steep middle, exposed to shade to exposed again): This is the business section. Consistently 9-10%, sometimes pitching higher, still mostly wooded but starting to open up. If you overcooked the first section, this is where it catches up to you — heart rate creeping at the same power, legs losing their snap.

The final roughly 6 kilometers (Chalet Reynard to the summit): The trees disappear. You’re on exposed white scree with nothing between you and the sun — or the Mistral wind, which can hit 60+ km/h near the summit and turns pacing into a fight against gusts as much as gradient. Race-day temperatures in Bédoin tomorrow are forecast well above 30°C, and that heat radiates straight off the pale limestone on this final section. This is where the stage — and your ride, if you’re ever lucky enough to climb it — gets decided.

How Long Does It Take to Climb Mont Ventoux from Bédoin?

For a strong amateur at roughly 3.5-4.0 W/kg sustained power, the 15.7km Bédoin ascent takes 60-75 minutes. Riders around 3.0 W/kg are looking at 80-100 minutes. Elite women’s pro riders will likely complete it in under an hour on stage day. The exact time matters less than the pacing principle: this is a one-hour-plus effort with zero recovery terrain, so your target power has to be sustainable for the entire duration, not just the first third.

The Power Plan: What to Actually Ride

Forget percentages you can’t hold for an hour. The number that matters here is your best sustainable power for 60-90 continuous minutes — call it your “long climb number,” which for most trained riders sits a few percent below true FTP.

Target zones by climb section

Section	Target Power	RPE	What You’re Doing
First 6km (forest, moderate)	82-86% FTP	5-6/10	Deliberately conservative. Let faster riders go.
Middle 8km (steep, 9-10%)	86-90% FTP	6-7/10	Small, controlled increase. Settle into rhythm.
Final 1.7km (9.4% average, exposed)	88-95% FTP	8-9/10	Everything left, but only because you didn’t spend it early.

The mistake amateurs make on this profile isn’t going too hard overall — it’s going too hard early because the first section feels easier than it is. Riding 100% FTP through the forest section because “it’s only 7-8%” is the single most common way this climb goes wrong. By the time the gradient kicks up past Chalet Reynard, that early surplus is gone, and there’s no valley left to recover in before the finish.

A Workout to Train This

You don’t need Provence to practice pacing a sustained climb. Any hour-long hill, a long trainer ramp, or a flat road with a headwind will do. Here’s a session built around holding one number for a long time without fading — the exact skill Ventoux tests.

Warm-up: 15 minutes progressive, building to endurance pace.

Main effort:

1. 20 minutes at 82-86% FTP (RPE 5-6/10) — deliberately restrained, even if it feels too easy
2. 20 minutes at 86-90% FTP (RPE 6-7/10) — small step up, same cadence, no surges
3. 15-20 minutes at 88-92% FTP (RPE 7-8/10) — hold, don’t chase
4. Final 5 minutes at 90-95% FTP (RPE 8-9/10) — the only section where you’re allowed to dig

Cool-down: 10 minutes easy.

Total time: 70-80 minutes.

The test: Compare your power file to your heart rate across the four blocks. If your power stayed flat but your heart rate climbed steadily, that’s normal cardiac drift on a long effort — expected, not a failure. If your power dropped in block 3 or 4, you went too hard in block 1. That’s the whole diagnostic. Run this session twice and you’ll know exactly how conservative your real starting number needs to be.

Heat and Fueling on a Climb With No Shade

The upper third of Ventoux has nowhere to hide from the sun, and with race-day temperatures pushing past 30°C in Bédoin, heat management is as much a part of pacing this climb as watts are. If you’re training for any long exposed climb in summer heat, heat acclimation protocols — even done indoors on a trainer with the fan off — measurably reduce cardiac drift and let you hold higher power later in a long effort.

Fueling matters just as much. A 60-90 minute all-out climbing effort in heat burns through glycogen and fluid fast, and unlike a repeated-climb stage where you can eat in the valleys between efforts, Ventoux gives you one continuous hour to get it right beforehand. Front-load your carbohydrate and fluid intake in the flatter kilometers before Bédoin — waiting until you’re on the mountain to start fueling is waiting too long. If your gut isn’t trained to absorb carbs under hard effort, that’s worth fixing before race day, not during it.

If you’ve never had your FTP retested since building climbing fitness this year, do it before you plan target watts for a climb like this — an outdated number turns a well-paced plan into an overcooked one before you’ve even reached Chalet Reynard.

What to Watch For on Stage 7

Tomorrow’s stage will be broadcast through the afternoon, finishing around 17:17 local time. Here’s how to watch it as a pacing lesson rather than just a race:

1. Who attacks in the forest section (the first 6km from Bédoin). Riders who go early here are betting they can hold the gap all the way to the summit — a bet that rarely pays off on a climb this long. Watch for it, and watch it fail.
2. The transition at Chalet Reynard. This is where the trees end and the wind and heat hit at once. Body language changes here more than anywhere else on the mountain — hands moving to the tops, heads dropping, cadence collapsing for anyone who overspent below.
3. Whether Vollering or Niewiadoma goes long or waits for the final 1.7km. The steepest section (9.4% average) is right at the top. A rider with pacing discipline can afford to wait. A rider who’s already deep in the red by Chalet Reynard can’t.
4. Reusser’s power in the final kilometer. She’s defending 12 seconds — according to reporting from Cyclingnews and idlprocycling, one of the tightest overall gaps of the race heading into a mountain stage. If she’s still producing watts in the last five minutes, the restraint paid off. If she’s fading, the gap won’t survive the summit.

The Bottom Line

A repeated-climb stage like Flanders rewards knowing when to spend your matches. Mont Ventoux rewards something simpler and harder: not spending anything you don’t have to in the first twenty minutes of an hour-long effort. There’s no second climb to make up for an early mistake here — just one long, honest mountain that punishes impatience and rewards riders boring enough to hold the same number for an hour.

Find a climb near you that takes 45-90 minutes, run the pacing workout above, and practice going slower than feels right at the start. It’s the same lesson Reusser and Vollering are riding tomorrow, just at a smaller scale and without the Mistral wind.

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Stage details from the official Tour de France Femmes race site. GC standings and stage 7 context from Cyclingnews and idlprocycling’s stage 7 preview. Pacing targets are training estimates based on power-based training principles — adjust for your own tested FTP and conditions.