Get Rapha Continental RSS feed

Gentlemen's Rides

Whenever we invite friends and customers of Rapha to ride with us, inevitably the questions of pace and ability always come up. Just like they do before the beginning of every group ride that’s ever transpired, with everyone straddling their top tubes, stretching and waiting for the guy who’s always late. As the route is being finalized, somewhere amid the complaints about legs or lack of sleep common among old people, it’s agreed: today is a friendly ride, today we ride together. It’s how you accommodate riders of differing abilities and fitness levels. It’s the only way you get faster. You ride with style, with class and grace.

The key word here is ‘gentlemen’. It’s a ride that involves a little bit of bragging rights but it’s more about storytelling and local folklore. It’s competition but not to the exclusion of camaraderie and experience. The reality of course is that gentlemen’s riding is racing in a group. In fact, gentlemen’s riding should really be called what it is – gentlemen’s racing.

Whatever the distance, whatever the route, a Gentlemen’s Ride is anything that isn’t a sanctioned race. It’s a way, in the middle of your Tuesday afternoon ride, to win a cyclo sportive, a brevet or town limit sign, even your local KOM. At the top of a climb, the group will reorganize, for on a Gentlemen’s Ride the group ends as it began, together. But along the way, when the ride is at its most challenging, the headwind at its most unobliging, all bets are off. That’s when the order of things remains to be decided. Again and again.

“What I love most about Randonneuring is the cue sheet. Come ride with us, come do this thing with us, but if I drop you or you drop me here are the instructions. It’s a group ride with directions.” – Greg Johnson