The NoGo Show

When team Aqua Blue Sport foundered, two of its riders got back their cycling mojo on an eight-day journey through the Alps

- Chris Marshall-Bell

The final few days of last August were the nadir in Conor Dunne’s and Larry Warbasse’s careers. Their Pro- Continental team, Aqua Blue Sport, informed them, via email, that they would be folding. What’s more, they wouldn’t be riding the Tour of Britain, the pair’s main focus for the second half of the season.

Without employment and no longer having an immediate race to prepare for, Dunne and Warbasse sat down to conjure up an idea of how best to deal with the situation. Their decision was to rewind the clock to their youth and ride their bikes for pleasure — a novel idea for professional cyclists.

And so came about the NoGo Tour, an eight-day bike-packing adventure through the French and Italian Alps, that headed from their Nice home, over 14 huge cols including Alpe d’Huez and Col d’Izoard, and back south to the Côte d’Azur.

Dunne says that “it began as something to keep us animated through a mentally tough period” but it ended with Warbasse declaring it one of the happiest weeks of his life.

“When I think back, I think about how cool it was to do something like that. It was life changing,” the affable American says, clearly high on rediscovering the freedom his bike gave him as a boy in Michigan.

“Honestly, and I said it at the time, but it was one of the most fun weeks of my life. It was totally unexpected considering that the week before was one of the least fun weeks.”

Club Med

Once the team-mates left their Mediterranean residency, it didn’t take long for them to realise that they were discharged from the normality of everyday life and were immersing themselves into a temporary bubble of freedom and perpetual enjoyment.