The Big Ride HIGH SUMMER
It’s been a strange year. If I wind back to last August, which honestly feels about 14 years ago at this point, I was accepting an invitation to ride the seven-day 2020 TOUR Transalp sportive. Giving the thumbs up to a near-800 kilometre behemoth is easy to do when you have a 10-month buffer until you find yourself at the sharp end of it. “It’ll be fine,” I always think. “Of course I’ll do the training. I’ve got almost a year!”
Despite such blatant bluster – and to my eternal surprise – I actually did put in something that could be recognised as, if you squinted hard enough, structured training. Hammering away on my turbo through the winter, I emerged into the new year optimistic for a ride in the Italian Dolomites that I could actually enjoy, rather than my usual stage race method, which is best described as being dragged kicking and screaming against my will.
And then… well, we all know what happened next. Despite taking place in mid-June, the Transalp didn’t officially succumb to the pandemic until the first week of
