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Our man Simon Hartwell rides 700km from Geneva to Nice with cycling legend Graeme Obree

Geneva Airport. After months of anticipation, training and anxiety, I was dragging my bike case and kitbag into the arrivals hall amid a sea of people holding up handwritten signs of names, none of which were mine. This was the beginning of my eight-day tour across the famous Alpine cols in the company of ex-World Champion and hour record holder Graeme Obree.

It’s a fresh Spring morning and the only thing troubling the sky is the welcome return of the aircraft contrails, it’s going to be a good day. It’s going to be an even better day for a big bike ride.

Half way up the Rhigos, on a Rhigos, it was clear that the bike is aptly named. Verenti are a company without a back story, the decades of racing history that many of their competitors can draw on. This bike isn't a Galibier or a Mortirolo, with all the memories that those sinews of tarmac can evoke, but it is a proper bike for the hills nonetheless, and a homegrown one too, designed for these shores. The Rhigos is a proper climb, not the longest or the steepest but a challenge and a rewarding one; you might call it good value and that's certainly what you get with the bike.

Long Audax rides, I've discovered, are pretty much everything I like about riding on the road. There's cake, for a start. Lots of cake. And there's the camaraderie of a mass start and a big group ride, and plenty of easy miles sitting in a bunch and chatting. Until you stop for cake. And there's a maximum speed as well as a minimum one, which makes me feel like I'm doing everyone a favour by not going too quickly.