The 100 Climbs Challenge

Simon Warren discovers how his book on Britains best climbs inspired three amateurs to take on a challenge bigger than the Tour de France.

Back in February I had an email from property company boss Dom Millar. “I’m planning a challenge,” he wrote. “I want to ride all the climbs in your book, 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs.”

A few people have done that; it’s a good challenge. It went on: “I, together with two friends, plan to ride them all in one continuous loop, point to point, over 29 days.” You plan to do what!?

To put that in perspective, Land’s End to John o’ Groats, is 1,407km; this year’s Tour de France was 3,349km; the Race Across America (R A AM) around 4,800km; the 100 Climbs challenge was set to be 5,300km. This was huge.

A few days later I met Dom in a pub in south London. He was stood at the bar and he directed me to a table where in the shadows sat Graham Salisbury and James Findlater (who was still having second thoughts at this time) and with the nervous trio assembled I began to tell them of the horrors that lay ahead.

These weren’t three elite athletes or experienced long-distance cyclists, just three guys intent on taking on a giant challenge and raising a shed load of money for charity along the way.

Over the coming months they’d spend long weekends in hilly parts of the country to get used to smashing out several big days in a row. These often soul-destroying adventures did nothing to assure them they were capable, but the date was set for the start anyway.

Setting off on August 17 from Guildford, they headed west, full of enthusiasm. By day three reality had begun to bite and Dom had his first wobble, posting a video online simply of his feet rotating beneath him. “I was too knackered to work out how to rotate the camera,” he recalls.