Video: riding the Mont Ventoux on Zwift

If you've spent any time riding indoors during lockdown you'll probably have given Zwift a go, and you may have seen some of our coverage of the Virtual Tour de France, hosted on the platform, in recent weeks. As part of that tie-in Zwift has created a new France map, and one of the climbs on that map is the biggest yet: the ascent of the Géant du Provence, the mighty Mont Ventoux.

There's three ways up to the 1,912m summit and the road on Zwift is the ascent from Bedoin, which is the one that's generally used in the Tour de France. And it's a big one: a vertical mile of ascent from bottom to top, over 21km of brutal French tarmac. The Zwift climb is an exact facsimilie of the real climb in terms of the route and the gradient, but the mesaured climb starts a bit outside the village, giving you ,1500m of climbing to do in 19km. So it's half as big again as the Alpe du Zwift, which is modelled on the Alpe d'Huez climb, and a very different beast too, majoring on just going uphill steeply for a long time rather than messing about with hairpins and such.

We sent Dave to give it a go, as he's done the real climb too, and report back. Watch the video at the top for his thoughts on the climb. And let us know what you think of it in the comments!