On Monday, after nine days of racing and hundreds of kilometers, we stopped. We rested. For some, the rest day simply comes and goes. For others, it disturbs the rhythm of the race. But for most, it is a time to relax, to talk with our families, to laugh with our teammates, to nap and, more than anything else, to disconnect from the Tour de France.

On a rest day we have the luxury of being in the same hotel for consecutive nights, a rare occurrence on the Tour. The rest-day program is often simple: a short ride with the team and interviews with reporters, and the rest of the day is ours. Naturally, we hope and pray that the rest-day hotel is a five-star joint.

We’re cyclists; we don’t ask for much. Good food, free wireless and comfortable beds make us happy. But we drew the short straw on this one, and our rest-day hotel was a step above camping. Luckily for us, our chefs, Sean and Laura, made it seem better than a stay at the Peninsula. Well, almost.

As the saying goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and that is especially true for cyclists. Because of Sean and Laura, the initial disappointment in our rest-day hotel was countered with meals of curry rice and chicken, heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, paella and Monday night’s feast of potato salad and barbecue turkey legs. There’s nothing like returning from a ride to the smell of sweet barbecue. It feels like home.

Sean is an expatriate from Colorado who has cooked all over the world. He now finds himself driving a camper through France, cooking in other people’s kitchens, out of the camper or on a Weber grill, for nine cyclists who eat enough for 18. Each night as I leave dinner, stuffed on my second helping of rice pudding, I feel so full that I don’t ever want to eat again. And each morning I wake up famished, looking forward to whatever they’ve prepared for us. We start and end each day with these two, and that is as close to feeling like home as it gets.

So, if you’re ever in Urús, Spain, stop by El Racó d’Urús and see Sean Fowler. Ask him to make you a plate of something we would eat during the Tour, and see if you can finish it. Then picture yourself doing the same morning and night for 23 consecutive days while staying below 5 percent body fat: 6,000 to 7,000 calories a day is a lot of kilometers.

C’est le Tour.

Christian Vande Velde is an American cyclist who finished fourth in last year’s Tour de France. Riding for the Garmin-Slipstream team, Vande Velde was in eighth place over all, 1 minute 24 seconds behind the leader, when he wrote this report between the 9th and 10th Stages. He will file periodic updates of his experiences at the Tour.