We ride with the triple Tour de France winner in Monaco, the closest thing he’s got to home roads.
So you’re going for a ride with Chris Froome, eh?” a friend back home in Northumberland said. “That’s pretty cool.” I’ll be honest, the prospect was. Froome, the Côte d’Azur, a bike ride – there’s a lot to like there. A couple of buts held me back initially. Ever seen photos of the Daily Mail’s chief football writer Martin Samuel down in Cobham of a Wednesday, having a kick about with Chelsea? No, of course not. Serious journalists don’t go onto the field of play with their subjects. It’s a bit cosy, and in cycling such an outing inevitably results in burning ears for months afterwards. Honestly though, I’m not all that serious. That’s a realm for finer, more forensic minds than my sclerotic grey matter can attain, so it was a comparatively easy hurdle to overcome.
Something else checked my headlong rush into a quick ‘yes’. ‘Amateur crashes with triple Tour winner, scuppers 2017 title defence,’ is just the sort of catastrophic, career-ending headline that’ll keep one awake at night. I’d already weaselled out of one opportunity to join the Team Sky leader on a ride when he’d been in Southampton doing wind tunnel testing before the 2016 Tour. This time it involved a trip to the south of France and the pros finally outweighed the cons. Trusting to Cycling Plus’s generous insurance for covering acts of lunacy, I found a bike hire company and booked myself a Trek.
Team base
This story is from the March 2017 edition of Cycling Plus.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the March 2017 edition of Cycling Plus.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Objectives of desire
Ned ponders his affection for cycling on a ride from London to Minehead
ONE OF A KIND
Project One combines premium-quality customised bikes with an endless palette of colours and designs from the creative experts at Trek. It's a winning formula. Here's why...
Trek Checkpoint ALR 5 Driftless
£2,700 Aluminium bike-packing-friendly gravel bike
Gower Peninsula, Wales
A rider powers up the Cefn Bryn ridge on south Wales' Gower Peninsula.
Slow commotion
Downing Street targeting 20mph zones is attacking popular policy
Black Series Multistrada
£5,629 British designed, all-road speedster
Helmetcam militia
Hey, bad drivers! Want to be in the movies? Then smile as you close-pass us while on the phone
Rolling horizons
2018 Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas tells us about the joy of discovering new routes
ENTER THE DRAGON
It's one of the toughest sportives in the UK, but did climb-loving cycling author Simon Warren have the legs to slay the beast of a sportive route in 2023?
LOFTY GOALS
Higher, harder, longer... the road-sportive calendar gets ever more extreme. Here are 10 of the toughest single day rides to enter for 2024