The concept is simple: complete the course in five days or fewer at your own pace, on your own or with your friends. Rapha provides the route, a celebratory send off, one checkpoint, a bag transfer and a warm welcome when you arrive in Los Angeles. The rest is up to you.

Completing five hundred kilometres during the festive period is challenging enough for most but some cyclists always feel compelled to take things a pedal stroke further. Before you embark on your own ride this year, take inspiration, or caution, from the story of the Portland Brevet ride.

The Cent Cols Challenge: As you begin to take in everything the mountains have to offer, you lose track of your normal life back home.

Rapha Ambassador Sarah Hammond won the inaugural edition of Australia’s Race to the Rock – a 2,300km unsupported race from Adelaide to Uluru – and was the only person to complete the course.

At first you try to avoid it. The circumstances are just right: 15 degrees, dry roads and surroundings in blossom. All those hours in the basement will now prove themselves worth it. Time to go outdoors.

It’s not possible. 100 mountain passes in 10 days. 200km a day with 5,000m of climbing. Let’s talk over drinks first before deciding anything… Who are the guys riding this? What is driving them?

For the launch of the Brevet collection, three riders travelled to South Africa to explore part of the Tour of Ara – a 700km race across some of the country’s most notorious and challenging terrain.

Rasmus Helt Poulsen shares his approach to the Cent Cols Challenge where taking the shortcut is not an option.