Viva le Tour!

2 full days of action since getting to Limoux!

Yesterday rode about 90k in the rain before deciding to call it a day due to time (in France, you need to allow 1h at least for lunch!) had a lovely lunch before jumping in the tour van to race to the stage finish. The tour van has official type clearance, meaning we were able to get on the course (closed roads) and drive to the finish line directly. The crowds lined the streets and were giving us the royal treatment as we rolled through the last 4k of the course - then setup at the 75m mark to watch the caravan and finish. The amount of free stuff was pretty good, without being fantastic, I think that was because we were so close to the finish line. Saturday we'll be at the plateau d'biele and will have a better chance at freebes. Following the finish and watching the Manx Missile smash Greipel (love Greipel, but Cav is by far the stronger sprinter) we jumped back in the van back to Limoux for dinner (foodies out there, it was devine) with one of the local wine growers, so we also had some of the best from the region, both white and red, while getting a lesson on who, where, what, how of wine. If that wasn't enough, the Bastille day fireworks were on last night so we got treated to about 30mins of fireworks in the beautiful medieveil setting, standing in a valley while the fireworks were launch off a high stone bridge above. It was an experience running through town to get to the river, pitch black, through all these tunnels - kinda felt like I was on the set of Merlin or something! Just wishing I had a fire torch!

Today we rode out to Miripoix for lunch. Miripoix is a walled town not terribly far from Limoux, but some good climbing and sprinting was done on thodays stage which was great fun. The colours of the countryside are breathtaking, the lovely quiet country roads have a good surface, so at times we were sitting on 45kph doing sprints to each town sign. I love Miripoix, it's noticably older than Limoux, with first record of it being in 10th century very quaint, very pretty with quite a bit of gothic architecture. The town wall and entry gate are still intact from the mid 1300's so again, I felt like getting my suit of armor and sword before mounting my steed to ride home. Got back into Limoux to catch the finish of stage 12, which is affectively the first stage of this years race to Paris - what a cracker, I can't wait for the Plateau stage and certainly can't wait for Alpe D'huez next week! Look for me in fluro DT's and Neuton runners!

Anyhow, signing out, we're about to meet for a meal on the town and a few brews before tomorrow's 110k ride to the beach for a bit of sun bathing Euro style - I have a size 11 sock for the occasion.....