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Here’s a mighty endeavour. The inaugural Cent Cols Challenge is an event unlike any other, described as “the ultimate sportive” and consisting of riding 100 Cols in just 10 days. And to find out what it’s all about, RCUK [you mean you, DA; count me out – ed.]will be taking part.
Taking place on 14-24 September, the event covers a staggering 2,000km and there is approximately 45,000m of climbing, taking in all the famous climbs of the Alps and a few less famous ones too. So you can tick off the Colombiere, Croix de Fer, Izoard, Ventoux and many, many more on your way round.
Sounds a bit daunting, doesn’t it? Challenges certainly don’t come much more imposing than this. And to find out exactly what it is all about, and hopefully get through each day, I’ll be there and reporting from each day. I’m lucky enough to have been gifted a place on board the Rapha team, along with Rapha’s very own Graeme Raeburn, Portland-based frame builder Ira Ryan and Nick Amlot, who won his place though a competition held by Rapha.
Unlike regular sportives where you take part individually, the Cent Cols has been designed as a team event, with riders taking part in teams of four. This should give the event a unique atmosphere as team members pull together to look after each other and help each other out and should enhance the safety of the event. It’ll certainly give a great degree of camaraderie to what will be a challenging personal ride for each entrant.
If you’re wondering why somebody would want to host such an event (and I certainly was), we spoke to the man behind Cent Cols, Phillip Deeker, and asked him a few questions to find out why. Here’s what he said:
How did CCC come about?
In 2007 I thought up a way of celebrating my 50th birthday : take a month off work to go cycling in the mountains. A simple idea; and a colossal challenge. Cycling is so much about ‘overcoming’ – I had to think up something big. Thanks to my wife agreeing to be support on four wheels and also taking on six roles daily to my one , I was able to ride out of Annecy on a July morning and attempt to ride up and over 300 Cols in a 29 days : 26 days of riding, two transfer days and one rest day. Following routes established by the Club des Cent Cols, I covered 4,500 kms in the Alps, Pyrenees and Cevennes and climbed 82,000 metres. I had never really considered NOT being able to accomplish this, far more due to my naivety than my self-confidence. Of course it was hard, but I ended up a far richer person with hundreds of images and fleeting moments of pure ‘bonheur’ horded in my mind to cherish forever.
After the challenge,( I raised nearly £10,000 for the charity M.A.G.), within a couple of months I felt the strong need to find a way of following up that magic month somehow. One way came to me quite clearly : to share that experience with others and offer the opportunity for others to prove they can do something quite extraordinary too. Putting 10 ‘Etapes du Tour’ back-to-back seemed like an exciting menu to propose!
Why 100 Cols?
The CCC sportive is based on my 2007 ride which was itself built around the ‘randonnées permanentes’ of the Club des Cent Cols. To become a member of this Club you have to have climbed 100 Cols, five of which must be over 2,000 metres. For me this provided a very definite goal for potential riders, and to find that many Cols meant that the route has to explore many unknown areas along very quiet roads : cycling nirvana! Of course not all the Cols are of Glandon calibre. Some demand 20 kms of climbing; some only five. A few are downhill. Nonetheless the CCC requires you to climb an average of 4,000 metres over 200 kms daily, for ten days, so most of them are UP! By pedalling smoothly and effectively, and being pretty fit, the riders can bag a ton of Cols and can rightly feel pretty good about it!
What advice to give to riders?
To think about taking on this challenge, riders have all provided CV’s proving that they are not new to this game. Behind all the dread and the tales of woe, there has to be an appetite for that special kind of glory that comes with most summits climbed. As well as this fundamental love of climbing and being out in the wild, to climb relentlessly for 10 days, riders need to ‘settle in’.
On the physical plane, after several months of committed training, they should have sorted out their breathing and pedalling technique for long sustained climbing efforts. They need to stay in their comfort zones as much as possible to avoid exhaustion or injury. Quick recovery is the next requirement, which can only be developed by back-to-back riding during training. The rest, on the event, will be in the mind: riders should lap up the scenery-it’s the best antedote for the pain and is a major part of what the event is all about. The mind should be making the most of each passing moment, focusing on the next 100 metres ahead and on nothing else.
How long have I been cycling for?
I’ve always been an outdoor, sporty person and have always had a bike of some kind but never really cycled regularly until, following a change of career (which was part of a mid-life crisis) I ended up working mostly inside and behind a desk. For the first time in my life I needed to compensate with a physical activity and so started commuting by bike, every day of the year, 20 hilly kms each way. That was ten years ago. Three years later I entered the Etape, having caught the Sportive Bug big-time, and despite three punctures (rim-tape problem) and 240 kms to ride, finished mid-field. I was by this time truly sucked into the thrills of endurance riding. After five years of doing the Etape, and finishing just outside the first 1,000 on the last time, I needed something else. My appetite for multi-day events had been whetted by Nick Bourne’s excellent Tour of Wessex, and then came my 300 Cols challenge…
Future plans for CCC?
Such has been the interest in this first Cent Cols event that I have designed four events for next year. I am about to go down to the Pyrenees to ride the Cent Cols route there in 10 days in august and fine-tune the itinerary. The Alpine challenge will be re-run and there will be a Cinquante(50) Cols version of both routes on offer too. Booking are already being taken.All events will be limited to 30 places in the interest of maintaining a certain character and philosophy behind these events.
Favourite place to ride?
I have the good fortune (which is not exactly coincidence) to live in the southern part of the Belgian Ardennes where the roads and climbs are superb all year round, if you don’t mind very cold feet and a bit of snow in the winter! This is my beloved training patch of which I never tire. But it is in the French mountains ( the ones I know best, compared to Italy, Spain or elsewhere) that I find my favourite places. I search for that “Perfect Col”. To help define this, without ranting on forever, I will mention just two : the Port de Bales, in the Pyrenees (Luchon side), and the Ventoux. The first is an intimate dialogue with a lost valley; the second a meeting with a Monument. Both take you up, stage by stage. Both have extraordinary summits.
The last time I was at the top of Ventoux, I saw the sun rise from there on the morning of Stage 20 of this years’ Tour. The wind actually blew me and bike across the road into the crowd barriers, many panels of which had been twisted by the wind during the night. The driver of the first TV lorry was trying to open his door against the wind. But I loved it.
The last time I was at the top of the Bales, a herd of sheep nonchalantly grazed, with some lying on the road. Their bells chimed a hymn to Eternity: all around was silent…. No more words required.
We’ll have more soon, including information on the route.
