The Rapha Festive 500

Lap it up while you still can...

Can't wait to get my silly little roundel in the post

Consumer trinket scum! It's all about the charity donation these days, don't you know?!

Missus is 7k short. It ends tonight right? Tell her it ends tonight..

Finished out with a pretty cold day in the hills around Saitama (127.6km - 1,359hm).

Total of 548.1km and 4,114hm.

Well done to all the finishers this year; it’s been great following everyone’s stories.

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My better half cracked through the 500k this morning. Pushed through some painful saddle sores to crush her First festive 500. Good on her. Props to her awesome coach...

When I die, I want my kids to have to sort through all this old tat and chuck it out

I'm a hoarder but I've never bothered to get a roundel because if I don't have it to begin with I can't hoard it :)

Did another 100 this morning for good measure to take it up to 600 in total. Surprisingly fast, but I have been riding every other day so I guess the recovery time has helped.

230k over 7 days. Just didn't have the time to do more. Felt very good, but I have mastered keeping my hands warm on early starts.

Arm warmers under the jersey.

Think I'm on 530 but a decent chunk of that would be 2x20s :)

Is it just me or the hardest thing of this is not actually riding 500k but not getting extremely bored in the process? Out of 500k, a good 160k were spent getting out and back into the M25!

Next time I would definitely rather go travelling and tour 800k in 8 days!

#Essex500

If you look at a lot of the higher mileages on Strava they've all in Oz or they've fucked off to Spain or Italy or whatever. Bit tricky if you live and work in London over the hols.

I guess I will do a different challenge next time around: ride 500k, in places you haven't before (with pictures and Strava records)

I rode up to my mum's in Suffolk a couple of days ago to collect one of my kids who'd gone to stay on Boxing day. Trains back are stopping at Ingatestone with replacement bus back to Newbury Park, so I thought it'd be a good idea to park my car there the night before so I wouldn't have the hassle of sticking me, my bike, the kid and her bags on the bus.

Someone has keyed both sides of my car in that 24 hour period! I'm half thinking about going back, parking up and hiding in the back to see if they do it again. I'd take a million frozen sausages, obviously

Good idea. Do 500k, none of which is on a road you've ridden before.

An another problem - you won't see much because of the short days.

I've done a lovely London Wales London route in two days last week but I haven't seen most of the beautiful parts because of the darkness.

Shame -(

Should we proclaim a June version of this for the northern emisphere bunch?

515 and done. Enjoyed exploring new lanes in the South Downs, got some new routes to do over summer when I'm not on a Cross bike. On that note, it does make it a bit more challenging doing the Festive 500 mixed road/offroad, using MTB and Cross bike.

Done too. Congrats to everyone upthread if you did 500 or 1km. More nice lanes today.

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Beautiful pictures.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I managed 21km on a beach cruiser.

Maybe next year

I'm up to 66km for cross-country skiing during the RF500 period. That's my main excuse for not having done 500km on a bike.

500km in 4days during Easter long weekend? A good weather is not guaranteed and less time, but the birds are singing and whole nature is awakening. Days are longer also.

#easter500

Sounds like a plan?

I'm down (unless I have to visit the in-laws)