Pre-April 2015, I openly laughed about the idea of Rapha Travel’s Cent Cols Challenge. I’m ashamed to quote myself on this, but I think I said something along the lines of: what kind of idiot signs up for that? In short, it’s ten days, about 200k per day, and usually at least 4000m of climbing (with one day on the Cent Cols Cantabrico hitting the unbelievable number of 7000+ for a select few (not me)).

It was at the end of April when we stayed with the man behind the CCC - Phil Deeker - that I felt my thoughts shift slowly toward…the CCC could be pretty cool. We spent an amazing week with Phil and his wife, Claire, in the heart of the Ardennes. By the time we left, there was nothing else I could think about. Come September, there was nothing else I’d rather do than spend ten days with twenty or so other crazy people in Cantabrico. More on that in a bit.

Thank you, Phil, for exploding what I thought was a horizon, a limit.

The Giro begins on Stage 9.

April 14th, 2017

March 21st, 2017

April 14^th, 2017

March 21^st, 2017