Rapha Rides the TOC - Episode 3 from RAPHA on Vimeo.
At the end of January, Rapha sent a team of six riders to ride all eight stages of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California. Riding each stage on consecutive days and matching, as closely as possible, the route the pros will start riding tomorrow, every morning for the next week you can find out how they got on.
With an exclusive report posted before each stage begins, and accompanied by compelling photography and video, the Rapha Continental brings you the Tour of California from a unique perspective. For a (slightly) slower but more colourful examination of the places and people that make up this year’s Tour route, visit…
Somehow in representing so few of us in the expense of their clothing and equipment, Rapha has managed to represent so many of us in their marketing. I’ve mentioned this before
The riders of the Continental are of my age and aesthetic, but in the shape I was in in 1996, riding Cat 4 races throughout the southwest. The video I embedded above, some of the closing shots remind me so much of riding Mt. Lemmon in Tucson.
At any rate, all the “ToC” videos (and you should watch them all) are incredible and inspiring, and help to communicate that what matters is that we ride and how we ride, not what we wear.