The Festive 500–I’m So Glad It’s Done!
This was the fourth time I’ve done the Rapha Festive 500 (I didn’t do it last year because I was heading to do the Baja Divide, and would have missed two days). It was, by far, the hardest one. The Festive 500 is a Strava Challenge sponsored by Rapha. The goal is to ride 500 km in the 8 days from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve. That works out to just under 40 miles per day. It is a worldwide event with over 80,000 participants. This year, as usual, I rode a lot of the miles with my friend, Jean, and a few of the rides with her partner, Ron. However, this year, Cindy, also a glutton for punishment, joined the Festive 500, and I rode many miles with her too. If not for these three friends, I may have given up. I know, that’s not really like me, and in past years, I’ve not found the Festive to be all that difficult. This year was different. Christmas Eve, Day 1 of the Festive, was very good. The four of us rode together doing the loop known as Johnson...