A Rest Day?

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow last night. I woke up around 3:30am for bladder relief (a sign of good hydration). As I make my way silently through the tiny dark room to the bathroom, I step on something. Suddenly, it speaks! WTF? It's Painman sleeping in the hallway. Turns out Baker got sick in the middle of the night, and he sought refuge in our room. I slept through the whole thing.

At breakfast, Painman stated he wasn't feeling up to a ride today, so the LSC crew was down to just Treb and I. Turns out, a ton of guys were taking the day off from riding.

Our route was simple. A descent down from Meribel to the valley, climb up to the famous Courchevel, and then traverse back to Meribel. The climb up to Courchevel was the most scenic yet. There are several villages at different altitudes, including the olympic ski jumps from the 2002 Winter Olympics. Way cool. We went all the way up to the airport, through the famous tunnel.

After our summit, we descended to one of the villages and scored lunch at a restaurant where they didn't speak of lick of english. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. We finished with 36 miles in 3 hours. A whopping average speed of 12mph.

On tap for tomorrow is the HC climb over the Col du Galibier for our 3rd and final viewing of the Tour De France. We know it will be tough, especially knowing that at the end of the day, we have to climb Alpe d'Huez to get to our hotel. I can't believe we're excited about that much pain.