Tour de France - Etape 15 (LES GETS LES PORTES DU SOLEIL to SAINT-GERVAIS MONT-BLANC- 205km, 4,400m)

Anyone bored of mountains yet?? They just keep coming and getting bigger. Whilst the official stage is "only"179km, our route involved 35 extra km just to get to the official start - thanks!

As expected, this replaced yesterday as my toughest and longest day on the bike - ended up being 11:30 of riding time for 208km (I got lost for a few km!) and 4,400m of climbing.

The usual photos of me at the top of mountains are below, but this stage reached points where I questioned if I could finish. Temperatures that hit 40C, 2 hour climbs with no shade, difficulty keeping on top of nutrition and hydration all played their part...

Knowing that Monday was a rest day was motivating as was the Facetime calls with family who shared how proud they were (Jude was particularly happy I hadn't crashed, and they loved the bunk beds!).

One village we passed through had a mountain spring into a water well and was marked potable - this was so welcome as I could refill my water bottles with cold, drinkable water and dunk my head in the well to cool down -

So the plan for rest day is washing, drying, clean / check the bike and eat, eat eat.

We are staying in Saint Gervais which is stunning so a visit to a cafe will be on the agenda too.

Griff