Tour de France - Heading South West

So once we decided on leaving the French Divide route we headed South West. We aimed to avoid big hills, big cities and busy roads.

Tom aimed to eat every type of cake he could find along the way.

Now we weren't quite so tight for time, we took to stopping for a mid morning coffee too.

We'd had a bit of a mechanical with the eccentric bottom bracket slipping in the Morvan, but now, just before we entered the Dordogne region, one of our spokes went ping.

We happened upon a bike shop quickly who found a replacement spoke.

Their mechanic wasn't there to fit it. Thankfully we had our own.

Tom being irrigated.

Nice views along the way.

Did I mention the heat?

There aren't many of these painted adverts on buildings left now.

On the 19th I get a message from the French Divide guys to ask if we were coming to their party at Mendionde on the 20th. I check the distance and we are around 100 kilometres away and sort of on our way to the coast, so we head there to see some of the other people who have ridden part, or all of the course.

Here's Tom and Céline.

We had a great evening hearing about the other riders exploits.

Then next morning, we continued our journey towards the sea.

One of the few rain showers we encountered on the whole trip.

In the afternoon we arrived at St Jean de Luz on the Atlantic coast and the usual hot sunshine had returned.