As is becoming a yearly tradition for me, this year I once again joined the Rapha Festive 500 Challenge on Strava (ride 500km between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, eight days).

That may not seem like a lot to some cyclists, or a crazy distance to others, it’s all relative to your own fitness, commitment to riding, and time constraints of course. Oh, and weather! It certainly helps that December is peak riding weather here. Seriously my friends, is there a better place than Tasmania to ride the Festive 500? I think not…

It’s almost like cheating by riding the Festive 500 down here in the middle of a beautiful Tasmanian summer. Tassie weather can be pretty unpredictable, but thankfully we’ve had some absolutely belting sunny days over the Christmas holiday period. It sure beats grinding out the miles during a British winter that’s for sure!

Even so, knocking out 500km in eight days is a fair bit more than I’d usually ride. I also like to tear it up a little and cross the line with a couple of days to spare. This year I completed it in six days. I’ve got the weekend to relax now, or perhaps squeeze in one more ride for the year.

I do like to ride most of the Festive 500 solo as it’s more time efficient, and I did want to see if I could complete the 500km in under 20 hours total elapsed time. That works out to an average elapsed speed, including any stops, of 25km/hr. I got there with a little over an hour to spare. My average riding speed for the 500km was 30.2km/hr. I’m pretty happy with that.

Perhaps I’ll take a short break now. 😎 Catch you all in 2024!