With less than 3 months to go the training is starting to heat up. Last weekend the Financial News Strava group racked up an impressive cumulative 948km.

There are a number of ways to motivate yourself for such an epic ride but I think the graphic Fareed found depicting Mont Ventoux does the trick nicely. We face this mythical climb on day 7. We will have cycled a long way already, some 700 miles. This is our Everest and the scene of the Financial News London to Monte Carlo 2 inaugural King of the Mountain stage. To the victor the spoils.