Rapha Festive 500 (2018)

Training
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Anyone planning on tackling the Rapha Festive500 over the Christmas break?

The premise is pretty simple; 500km* in 9 days between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve inclusive (thanks @moshecattan!) Fortunately being in the southern hemisphere (Sydney) there is much more incentive to get out and ride than there is into the teeth of a northern winter!

Conveniently my base, build and specialty are winding up this week so I’m hopefully in good shape for it. I’m planning to put in 100-110km on the first day to get ahead of the curve and go from there.

  • *Edited to add these have to be on-road miles (and I don’t think Zwift counts).
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OP suggestion to write dates into original post :+1:… 24-31 December

Including me, a “handful” of courageous peeps are coming off WW Disaster Day, I probably won’t necessarily say I’m going for 500k but if through the usual training I’m near it then yeah…

Always balancing making cycling fun and gaining fitness…

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Oops, that is kind of important isn’t it! Thanks :slight_smile:

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I already have a route planned for 185km on Christmas Eve! I am lucky enough to live in SoCal where “cold” for me is 45F. Probably do a quick 40-50k Christmas day, then a couple long rides the following weekend as well. I’ve done it two years now.

I find it fun to see old faces out on the road I haven’t seen in a while. They come out of the woodwork to get their Festive 500 in, with no recent training or anything! They just love the idea of it I suppose. One year it rained for 3-4 days during the event so on New Year’s Eve they ended up hosting a ride around this 1 mile crit loop near me and everyone just did the amount of loops they needed to get their 500km. Some folks did over 150 loops. :face_vomiting:

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Did the F500 last year…on a single speed…

Been there, done that, ain’t goin’ back (even though wife wants the roundel!).

This year I’ll be doing the Festive 500 Christmas Cookies! :santa::cookie::milk_glass:

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Yeah, once was enough for me too. It’s much better to front load the mileage up front. Never know what will happen later on. Good luck.

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I would love to ride the festive500, but at the moment I have only road bikes. This time of year it is not really road bike weather up here. :snowman_with_snow:

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I found it funny to see the same old faces for that whole week…just aimlessly riding around in crappy weather…nodding at each other with the dreary acknowledgement of what you’re both up to…

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No. I’ll mostly be spending time with my family rather than putting in several hours a day over the festive period.

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I tried last year but the weather was really too much. Two days I got absolutely soaked through to the bone and I decided to stop after coming off after riding through a patch of ice which hadn’t melted on a back road.

Scotland in the middle of winter is not the place to do the Festive500 on the road.

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I don’t do 500K on the road all year round so not likely to do it in the depths of winter.

Slight exaggeration, - I probably do about 1200K on the road annually.

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I’ve done it three times but it honestly ends up becoming a chore.
It does nothing for my training, it likely sets me back.

You end up doing a lot of garbage zone2 just trying to survive. You find the flatest routes, the most sheltered roads, and by day 3 you are just trying to get by. A few years ago I spent the final 2 days doing 50km of back and forth on this 3km pan flat stretch of tree lined roads in the pouring rain just so that I could get the KM’s needed. Not doing that again.

Now if I was in Tucson or SoCal…different story.

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Yup, pretty much sounds like a typical 500 scenario.

Strapha sure suck ‘em in.

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Not for me, thank you.

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I’ve started it many times but never quite got to 500k. Hopefully this year is the year.

It is a little (or a lot) easier down here in New Zealand as it will be beautiful summer weather

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I’m going to at least start it and see how I go, it’s the first year I’ll have tried and I’ve not got much training in recently so I’ll probably only last a day or two.

Planning 3 100km days and 3 70km. Hoping that’ll give me enough rest…

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I use the holidays as a mini-block, because I can almost always get in a short to medium length trainer session since I’m an early bird.

The kilometers are irrelevant to me and don’t find that aspect very valuable when I’d rather focus on my goals.

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I’m doing one of the rapha rides in San Francisco when I’m there for Christmas…

Other than that nope I’m focusing on my training :+1:

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A few of my friends have signed up for the Rapha Festive500. It isn’t my cup of tea right now. But I shall be doing a TT on News Years day. It is a tradition here and the 50 to 100 riders are hoping for non-icy weather. Glad it’s not just me that enjoys riding over Christmas etc.

Good luck for the 500 everyone.

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Unless there is exceptionally mild weather in the UK I’ll probably aim for a Rapha 300 and save my legs for SSBMVII in the new year.

It’s still nice to mix things up and get riding outside with no real efforts to follow and just enjoy a few coffee stops.