Sunday: Registration in Montelimar

Sunday we got up late still very tired. Still no news of the baby.

We needed to travel to Montelimar 40 Km down the road to where the Etape was going to start the next day (Monday). We needed to show our documents, register and pick up our number, transponder and goody bag.

Travelling down on the Saturday we had all three bikes inside the car (both for security when we stopped and to reduce drag on the long drive). I had also brought inside the car roof bars and bike racks to go on the roof as we were going to need them on race day to take bikes to the start, so first thing after breakfast I put these up on the car.

We then drove, five of us in the car, to the registration village. We registered then wandered around the event village at the start. The village was quite small, much smaller than two years ago at Foix. Seeing as it is such a big event you would have expected a much bigger event at the start.

Wandering around the village I met up with S from Team MK who was on a sports tours package. He joined us for lunch. Whilst I was leaving I also bumped into another friend that I had ridden with in Sydney last year and we had a chat.

We didn't hang around the village too long, things to do. We drove back to the hotel and some of the guys drove on to the finish to drop off two of the four cars we had between the six of us (another guy arrived Sunday morning). The plan was that we would take two cars to the start in the morning with the bikes, and leave the other two cars at the finish so we could drive home after the event.

Late afternoon, after putting our bikes together and watching some of the tour on Eurosport on the TV in our rooms, we did a short ride towards the start. After about 10 km we turned around and returned towards Nyons. Really got the cobwebs out of the legs with a fast ride downhill into Nyons.

We had an early dinner on the hotel terrace and went to bed early. Breakfast was booked for 4:00 AM.