Day 17    Mon 14/07/14   Nimes to Carcassonne  0 km!

Rest Day number 2

After waking up in Nimes in pure luxoury. (And that was nothing to do with the fact that my new room mate, Steve, doesn't snore!) we had a relaxed breaky in the Novotel, before setting off for a 2 hour bus transfer to Carcassonne.

Premier Class hotel, not the most luxorious (!) but for some reason I ended up on my own, so have the luxoury of a room to myself for once.

Another beautiful sunny day, meant a quick taxi into town, a lovely relaxed lunch of a sort of pizza, some chocolate brownie and cream, coffee and sirop de grenadine..... and bizarrely a lift home from a Frenchman who lives in England (London, Brixton) but is back in Carcassonne for a while.... he took pity on us trying to hail a taxi on Bastille Day.....14 July. Fantastic. What a gent. Christophe....merci!

So then it was bike clean, change wheels (I fitted Andys rear wheel as my free wheel hub is broken) and a spare front wheel as my rims were very badly worn from the rain, and don't want to risk a blown up wheel. Both my front and rear have tyres on so I left them as spares in the vans in case of emergency for other riders.

We then watched the end of stage 10 (La Planche des Belles Filles) and leant that Contador has also pulled out. So that's Froomey, Cav, Contador and they didn't do all the cobbles. Soft lads these pro's!

Then at 6:45pm a group walk to a nearby restaurant ready to start thinking about the last 6 stages which are upon us tomorrow.

The last big push. The next 3 days are HUGE, the biggest and most difficult days. It's forecast to be hot, but we are all trying VERY hard not to moan about the heat, after the hideously cold descents where we were praying for sun!!

Bring it on.... Paris beckons... just these pesky Pyrenees in the way

PS Just been told that collectively we have now raised over £422,000 for the WWMT. Amazing. Makes all that rain and pain seem worthwhile! Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me or anyone else.