Stage 16

Woke up at sunrise in Sete today and drove two hours to our start for the day.  Then the ride was about 130km into Gap, at the foot of the Alpes, followed by a mellow ride up a local hill and back into Gap.  The day went pretty smoothly and we ended up at our hotel in Gap by 6ish, the earliest yet! 

I felt kind of pro earlier in the day when the Spaniards caught up to me in the headwinds and invited me to sit on the back of their train.  They'd been joined by two more Spanish guys, so I made 6 and nobody minded me taking a breather from my solo efforts on the back of their train.  Felt great to be the protected rider!  Haha!  I hardly made any effort at all for about an hour and a half.  I ended up opting to sit down for lunch instead of continuing on with those guys, so my day slowed down after that.  Still, the day was less than 6 hours and none of the climbs were too challenging. 

We also got lucky with the arrow guys leaving the start just after us.  I have a GPS map on my bike so that keeps me on track, but dad really counts on the yellow arrows being posted along the route.  Last time the Tour was on a rest day, the arrows weren't out until much later, so we were pretty happy to see them roll by about 10km into the day. 

Then even more exciting was our hotel being just a few kms past the finish line, so I was able to ride straight to the hotel, stretch in the room instead of the road, then hop right in the shower.  And on top of that we ride out of Gap in the morning too!  No drive to the hotel post-ride today, and none pre-ride tomorrow either!  Booyah! 


162.88km in 5:57:38 for an avg speed of 27.3km/h.  Not a bad pace for nearly 6000ft of climbing and a net gain in elevation of about 2000ft.  Now the real fun begins as we zig zag through the Alps for the next few days.