Adventure. Team Work. Resilience.
On Saturday 9th September 2017, the Langhe area of Piedmont hosted the first Rapha Prestige ever in Italy. Terroir Selection, being based in this stunning corner of Piedmont, worked closely with the Italian staff of Rapha in order to create the best possible event. The Rapha Prestige is not a race but it’s an unsupported, unsanctioned, and un-marshaled one-day ride across stunning terrain. The rules are simple: the course is tough, the four team members must start, ride and finish together.
Terroir Selection, thanks to the local and deep knowledge of the area, have had the role of helping Rapha to find the start/end location and design the course respecting the Rapha Prestige philosophy: a long and tough itinerary mostly on secondary or hidden roads and with some gravel sections. We ended up designing an adventure of 170 km with over 4.000 m of elevation gain: a ride through some of the most beautiful and quiet roads of the Langhe area with many amazing climbs as well as stunning views.
Although the very tough ride, the event has had a great success: the 30 teams attending it loved the itinerary and also the fact that they saw very few cars along the way. For most of the cyclists that attended the event, it was their first time riding in this stunning corner of Piedmont but they just fell in love with it. We also attended the event, thanks to the invitation of Rapha after having designed the course, and our team can definitely confirm how tough it was but also how much fun we had!
We hope to welcome Rapha again in the future and work with them for another fantastic event in the Langhe area!