Christophe Bristiel is a rare cyclist. No Strava, not even a GPS; he still uses Michelin maps to find his way. A throwback and a romantic, Bristiel lives at the foot of Mont Ventoux. He has climbed the Giant of Provence more times than you can imagine, but he’s never competed in a bike race. He is, as we riders well understand, in love with the bicycle and one particular mountain.
After a successful career in international banking, Bristiel turned to wine, where he would eventually work for one of the most storied châteaux in all of France: Château La Nerthe in the Rhône Valley.
“Mont Ventoux,” Bristiel explains, “is freedom at my doorstep: a luxury only a short ride away. Every year, thousands and thousands of cycling enthusiasts flock to my village, Vaison-la-Romaine. [Ventoux] is on any cyclist’s bucket list. I would be a fool not to make the most of it!”
If you find yourself in Provence, you’re welcome at Christophe and Meilin’s home, La Baye des Anges, a luxury vacation rental set among lavender fields and olive groves.
Bristiel estimates that he has climbed Ventoux about 15 times a year, for the last 25 years, except for one epic 365, in 2022, when he climbed it 100 times. Doing the math, that’s 15 x 24 = 360 + 100. That’s 460 times up Ventoux, give or take.
For many of us, even those of us born in France, Ventoux conjures images of the Tour de France. For Bristiel, his most visceral Tour memory has nothing to do with Ventoux. “It’s a very special and very vivid memory, that of sitting on top of my grandfather’s shoulders,” Bristiel recalls, “watching Bernard Hinault don his very first yellow jersey following stage 20 of the 1978 Tour. It was a time trial between Metz and Nancy: I can say I was there!”
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