Festive 500
Rapha’s Christmas kilometre challenge has become part of the cycling establishment in just 12 years
For all the Christmas survival guides on getting through the festive period without feeling as stuffed as a turkey, in truth you don’t need to look beyond the Rapha Festive 500.
Since it began in 2010, largely as an internal challenge at Rapha, the Festive 500 has been a popular calorie-burner through this eating-to-excess period. The premise is simple: ride 500km in the eight days between 24 and 31 December and upload your rides to the ride-tracking app Strava. Aside from a story to tell on your social media accounts, for your efforts you’re awarded the Strava Festive 500 badge and go into the hat for the prize draw. In 2021, Lee Sangmin from South Korea won the biggie, a brand new Cannondale Synapse, while daily prizes are on offer for those with the best stories to tell. For a challenge that began life in Rapha’s southeast England home, it’s now a global cycling phenomenon, with riders from over 100 countries completing the requisite 500 last time out.
Suffer in silence
500km in an eight-day period is tough going at any time of year, but for many northern hemisphere riders, the eight days during an often cold and wet Christmas is a particularly high bar to clear. Which perhaps explains its popularity. Of course, we can’t discount the idea of people choosing to ride an average of 62.5km a day for eight days as sanctuary from the chaos of their homes, but if cyclists embrace anything it’s suffering, and clocking up such a distance at one of the coldest times of year registers high in the suffer stakes.
Up until 2019, the challenge had to be completed outside, which meant that Zwift and other indoor training-platform distances did not count. The Covid-19 lockdowns changed all that in 2020 and 2021, with many not able to get outside for long enough to ride the kilometres. At time of writing we hadn’t got word as to whether the original format had been restored for this year.
For cyclists, the Festive 500 is now a Christmas tradition up there with mince pies, turkey and Christmas pudding, explained by the fact it cancels all of the others out when it comes to your waistline. So grab your bike, fire up Strava and get riding!