On a hot, cloudless March day in 2009, a young Chris Froome took to the roads of Africa for the Cape Argus Giro del Capo Challenge. Riding for the British registered, Italian-based Barloworld team, Froome already had a Tour de France in his legs and comfortably won the first of three days of racing in South Africa against a small field of riders most of whom had never been anywhere near a Grand Tour.
The former Kenyan mountain biker was still working life out as a professional rider, and that win was his third ever on a road bike. Days later he was back in Europe and settling into a season of more intense racing.
