 The world’s business leaders are signing up to pain and exhaustion like never before. The star of this month’s CNBC European Business cover story is a case in point – Rainer Nolvak said of his Hawaii Iron man contest: “I felt completely calm. First the 3.8km swim, which I emerged from completely fresh for the 180km bike ride, and later the 42.2km run. Believe me, you feel like you can move mountains after that.” A symbol for how competitive and popular these events are becoming is Ted Kennedy’s Boulder, Colorado-based company CEO Challenges (www.ceochallenges.com), which in the space of the past 18 months has grown enormously to offer big-ticket charity triathlons and marathons alongside the more obvious golf matches and driving events that executives take for granted. It remains an exclusive club, the events being open only to “any CEO, company president, or corporate chief officer of a company with annual gross revenue of at least $5m.” This guarantees the type of networking magic that few other events can offer. Right at the heart of the trend is one sport in particular: cycling. Although the professional scene continues to be mired in drug scandals and political bickering, the combined effect of Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis has been to transform the appeal of the sport in the US, fuelling impressive growth rates for American bike makers such as Trek, Specialized and Scott.  Silicon Valley is so gripped by the cycling craze that non-cyclists are signing up just to network on the hills that separate San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. John Roberts, CEO of open-source software company SugarCRM, says: “For us, at a high level, you look for the same attributes that are needed in cycling. You’ve got endurance, strength, power and intensity – exactly what we look for in top managers. It’s also a very social sport – instead of doing 18 holes of golf with a couple of opponents, you ride with 30 people. As you’re going through the peloton [a group of cyclists riding together in tight formation], you can meet a lot of potential contacts.”
The number of active cyclists in the UK has doubled in the past five years, completely transforming the amateur racing scene. This year the Tour de France begins in London, and on 1 July thousands of amateurs will ride the first group stage from London to Canterbury, a distance of 188 km. Hundreds of other rides all over Europe are taking place this summer, and buying the essential kit is part of the attraction. Today it’s no big deal to spend several thousand euros on a bike and as much again on clothing and kit, spare wheels and heart monitors. Just as in other leading sports from the America’s Cup to Formula One, cycling is firmly under the spell of sexy materials such as carbon fibre, ceramic and titanium.  In the end, of course, it’s not about the bike – it’s about the rider and the ride. The ultimate cycling events are still held in Europe, and they invariably involve epic mountains soaked in the blood of past combat. The toughest of the lot is the Etape du Tour (www.letapedutour.com) – this year’s route copies stage 15 of the Tour de France itself, Foix to Loudenvielle. It is 196km long and climbs five Pyrenean cols including the 1,755m peak of Port de Balès, the total altitude gain amounting to over 4,000m.
Over 8,500 cyclists from all over the world will take part, and the overwhelming number of applicants has led organisers to set up a second event this year called the Etape de Legende.
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