‘Vous êtes des assassins! Oui, des assassins!’ (‘You are murderers! Yes, murderers!’) This is the famed quote bellowed by Octave Lapize during the first monumental crossing of the Pyrenees in the 1910 Tour de France. Incandescent with rage that anyone could dream up such torture, he spent the day relentlessly berating race organiser Henri Desgrange for what he saw as inhumane for the riders: “You cannot ask human beings to do a thing like this!”
It’s these sentiments that are echoing through my mind as I eventually roll across the finish line and came to a halt at the headquarters of the quite frankly bonkers Ronde van Calderdale sportive. “Where are the organisers?” I demand. “I need to talk to whoever is in charge.” Who on earth would plot such a route?
I had waited a long time to ride the Ronde van Calderdale (RVC), perhaps five years since I’d first got wind of its unique route. What scuppered my participation was the fact its traditional date in the calendar had been the same date as the Tour of Flanders, which was a problem for me,such as the Koppenberg and Oude Kwaremont, RVC possesses a clutch of climbs infamous among the residents of Halifax and Sowerby Bridge and within the wider British cycling firmament. These climbs, such as Gibb Lane, Shibden Wall and Trooper Lane, makes Flanders’ best look like mole hills. The route of the RVC was devised in 2010 by Mick Collins, in a first year where just 30 local riders took part, and adds up to a devastating 120km challenge for all who dare to take it on.
