We've turned a corner...

Stage 12 completed, all went to plan, a somewhat uneventful  transition stage heading back towards the next big mountain stages in the Alps, with Mont Ventoux as a sweetener on Monday.

Riding through town, Stage 12

Today's schoolboy error was not using the sun protection that has proved so effective to date, with lower temperatures and the sun not so strong it proved a big mistake to spend 7 hours plus on a bike without sun protection, the result, a quite significant and obvious cycling tan!!!!! Breathing still seems to be a little odd after coming out of the mountains and the left hand still seems to be a little swollen, other than that all ok (apart from an increasing number of private blisters!!).

Route checking, Meg!

We are now only one day behind the Tour with many villages and towns keeping a range of 'creative' roadside decorations on show, many schools and shops are adorned with bike's, jersey's and garlands'! Today's stage turned a corner in a number of ways, beyond the half way point and also turning away from the North coast to begin the journey back South, the road went on for mile after mile after mile, we cut just short of the 138 miles of the official Stage to take a crew member to the airport for the 17.30 flight back to Stansted, well done Meg, great job! We welcome David back to the crew for the final punishing push towards Paris....

At Tours airport we met Chris a rider from the UK, heading back to Germany via the UK, who had read about our experiences of RAAM 2012 in Outdoor Fitness magazine, and also about Ride 21. It was good to meet up and to listen to his experiences of watching the Tour (great photo of Froome in the TT) and five days of riding in the region.

The Ride 21 article in Outdoor Fitness is due out in July (August edition) if we can get our 'library' of photo's back in time, another challenge!

Ride 21 crew and rider still on the road, still supporting and fund raising for Action Medical Research, roll on Stage 13 and the mountains.

www.action.org.uk/tourdefrance

Twitter @chrisarmishaw

''if you're not hurting you're not riding hard enough, if you know you will succeed it's too easy''