Rapha Prestige Oslo // An Arctic Adventure
Radcore has a rich history with Norwegian racing given the fact that some club members had already participated in the Viking Tour stage race here in Norway before. The team had also done exceptionally well well in the inaugural Rapha Gentlemen’s Race Bavaria so it came naturally to defend the title in the North at the now called Rapha Prestige.
The Prestige is an unmarshalled, unsupported 160km, 2000-3000hm, team time trial over differing challenging terrain with the GPS file of the course being sent just 24hours before the start. A team consists of 4 riders and all 4 riders must make it over the finish line. With this new format it takes various skills to succeed: bike handling skills, adequate equipment, teamwork, navigation skills, stamina and courage. The Prestige is not officially being labeled a race (supposedly due to legal claims) but it features a winning team - so everyone go figure out what you may call it - Rapha labels it as an adventure.
Arriving at the start line on a cold Saturday morning the team was surprised by the astonishing amount of bare skin.
"Either they are too cool to be cold up here in the North or these guys are on a suicide mission".
With temperatures around wetty 7°C (and forcasts to drop even further) it was the Flandrian lesson learned that made the team stick to: long - sealed - warm. And this turned out to be a wise decision with temperatures hitting rock bottom and dropping as low as 2°C and a vision of 30 metres, due to fog, on Holmenkollen on the way back to Oslo.
The course was quite challenging featuring main roads with certain parts of heavy traffic, some lonely country roads, hidden climbs alongside beautiful fjords and 14 kilometres of packed wet gravel roller coasters.
Around km 90 in the Prestige the rain started and the train started rolling by. It was fttoslo on the attack. After a short period of discord and the attempt to hunt them down we decided not to bridge and let them ride - we only counted three of them.
After the second checkpoint we were heading into the woods and straight into the gravel grinding roller coaster and the fun part of ups and downs. The rain got stronger and stronger and escorted us until the finishing line, reaching its peak right on top of Tryvann and pouring down on us on the descend back to Oslo.
Back in Oslo, fully soaked we were the third team to reach the finish and the first who reached it as a complete 4-piece. Zero flats, just a couple of minor navigation issues and proper equipment and a full Flandrian training at the Tour of Flanders seemed to finally pay off. From then on it was all about a hot shower, tasty BBQ, great conversations and packed fridge with liquid gold.
Thanks to Team Sky chef Henrik Orre for the lecker bbq. To Ricky from Rapha and Henrik from landevei for setting the whole thing up and being such great hosts.
See you guys on the road!
Strava link of the adventure: https://app.strava.com/activities/305618364
