The Tour de France is back in the mountains today, the riders tackling Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde before going on to finish at Luchon-Superbagnères, a 182.6km (113.5 miles) stage that takes in a whopping 4,950m of climbing (16,250ft) – and that’s a good excuse to look back at the Rapha 1910 Challenge that I did back in 2010. It’s still one of the most memorable rides of my life.

Here’s the premise… 1910 saw the eighth edition of the Tour de France and the first time it entered the high mountains. Back then, the racers would ride monster stages, rest the following day, and then go again. One (huge) day on, one day off. Stage 10 that year was from Luchon to Bayonne – just over 200 miles, taking in Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet, Soulor, Aubisque, Osquich – and that’s the stage we were going to ride. Over 6,000m of climbing.

There were four of us riding, the others being Ultan Coyle and Graeme Raeburn from Rapha, and Phil Deeker, creator of Cent Cols Challenge. Phil was the mastermind behind the ride. Instigator, organiser, historian… all that stuff and more.

Prior to 1910, Tour de France organisers had thought that the massive mountains, with their poorly surfaced roads, would be too difficult and dangerous. Then Tour founder Henri Desgrange sent his assistant to investigate, Alphonse Steinès reporting back that the Tourmalet was “parfaitement passable” – perfectly passable – so it was included in the race for the first time, along with a bunch of other high passes.

Famously, the eventual stage and overall winner Oscar Lapize shouted to Tour officials as he went over Aubisque, “Vous êtes des assassins! Oui, des assassins!”

You don’t need to be a linguist to work that one out.

I won’t tell you the story of the day because the video does a far better job than I could. I will give you a few long-lasting impressions, though.

Before we started, I wasn’t really sure how we were going to do this ride. Don’t get me wrong, I thought that we would muscle through to the finish somehow, it’s just the middle bit – the actual doing bit – I couldn’t envisage what it would look like. Or feel like.

We started in the middle of the night, and it was raining. I don’t know about you, but I’m not at my best at 3:30am, and we were climbing Peyresourde right out of the door. At least we weren’t cold. Not on the way up, anyway.

I remember getting to the top of the mountain and it was still pitch black and still raining. Going down the other side, I shivered so hard that it turned into a speed wobble and I had to press my knee against the top tube to stop it. I didn’t tell the others – troop morale and all that – but at that stage, I really didn’t see how the next 190 miles and 5,000m of climbing were going to happen.

I also remember getting to the top of Tourmalet – three mountains in – at about 8am and thinking that I’d be rolling out of bed and tucking into my cornflakes at about that time on a normal day.

The other thing I couldn’t get out of my head the whole day was that we were doing this ride on 21st-century bikes and it was still hard. Ridiculously hard. Doing it on a 1910 bike on 1910 roads? That’s a few levels beyond what I can imagine.

The weather did get better as the day went on, but the summer sunshine for which the south of France is so renowned? Sadly not. It didn’t matter, though, because the ride was brilliant, the scenery was fabulous (when it got light enough to see), and the whole experience… well, not many people get the chance, do they? 

Looking at the video recently, Dave in the road.cc office said that I looked chipper at the end of the ride. Don’t fall for the bravado. I was absolutely ruined.

Fifteen years later and it seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time. Don’t ask me how that works. It’s still up there as one of the most unforgettable rides I’ve ever done.