Day 27, Rest Day
Today we drove 650km from Mont Ventoux to our start town for tomorrow’s final stage where we will ride into Paris. We can’t believe we are only one stage away from completion.
During the drive we saw lots of Tour de France sponsor vehicles for the caravan heading in the opposite direction towards Monaco for the start of the tour on Saturday (where we will be eager spectators).
What we have achieved and what has transpired in the past month has hit me all at once and my head is spinning a little bit. We are just three ordinary everyday people and we are one stage away from completing the entire Tour de France route. That’s quite amazing when you think about it. The entire ride I’ve just been so focused on completing each individual stage and looking after my body so I can get through to Paris but today’s long drive has given me some time to think about the bigger picture and take it all in and it has just been an enormous achievement.
My focus now is safety and just making sure that we all make it into Paris safely through what will be the heaviest traffic we will have encountered.
I was also reflecting on all of the work that I’ve put in to make this project happen. I’ve been planning it since I finished my coast to coast ride across America in 2005. Every spare minute I’ve had over the past 6 months has been devoted to this project and after tomorrow it will all be finished. It will be hard to imagine not going home from work and putting in extra hours towards this project. I’m definitely looking forward to a rest but thanks to being made redundant one week prior to my departure for Europe I won’t rest for long before embarking on my next mission – finding a job. Luckily I am an EU passport holder so I plan to stay on in Europe and find a job over here.
So many things to arrange after the ride but I don’t want to think about them just now. We have been running on such little sleep and such low energy levels. I just want to get through tomorrow, finish the ride safely and relax for a while.
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