Rapha Festive 500

Since the Rapha festive-500 began in 2010 I’d thought “yep, must do that sometime” but I’d just not really been focused enough over the festive period to do it yet. It had, until now felt like a pressure I didn’t really need during the very welcome Christmas break. So, what had changed in 2020 to make me think this was a good idea now?

Well, I think it was a combination of; me finding my cycling mojo again through November with the Zwift Academy 2020, the realisation that I want to be doing some distance riding in 2021 (and hence need to be in shape for that), and that this year Rapha had opened up the challenge to include not only outside rides but also turbo trainer rides as well! This really opened up the possibilities for me. I even thought, “could I do it all in a oner on the turbo in a day?” Although people have done this and more previously on turbo trainers, I had recently ridden 200Km over 6 hours on the turbo as a bit of a test for the F500…. and my conclusion from that was that I wouldn’t want to do 18hrs on the turbo to tick this box. I would combine outside and inside throughout the F500 window.

Rapha had worked with Zwift to make some endurance based workouts available in Zwift, and throughout December I made sure I had completed them all. I actually really enjoyed the workouts, they were very good and made use of gradual power ramps, intervals, steady state endurance blocks and free ride sections. See more here; whatsonzwift Rapha F500 Workouts

Christmas Eve \\ Day 1

A looped rectangular shaped route, was my plan with just over 70Km and 650 metres of elevation. Out the door at 07:30 and it was very chilly indeed, hands freezing for the first 15-20 mins but then fine once warmed up and circulating. You could feel that it would be a nice ride with clear skies coming up.

Leaving town on familiar roads out to the east before heading North just past the Tallington railway line crossing. There is a precast concrete manufacturing facility near here and sometimes it has some funny shaped items waiting for delivery.

Further on were typical winter Ks, wet and mucky roads with ice in places where the sun hadn’t touched yet. A few cyclists out and about and some hills to deal with too. A pleasant ride and a good one to kick off the Festive 500 with.

Boxing Day \\ Day 3

A family day on Christmas Day meant no riding, and looking for a Zwift event later in the day showed that I could join a group ride at 7am on Boxing Day, joining Michael Knudsen for the first 100K of his Festive 500 – to be done all on Zwift in a oner… Michael turned out to be a nice fella, chucking out tips for all the advice hungry riders on the event. One of his comments had me shuddering where he said something like his fitness is really good at the moment and he was able to ride at 6W/Kg for 18.5 mins.

FFS, that’s ridiculous and I can only imagine the amount of time he’s had to put in to be able to do that. The ride was advertised at 2.5w/Kg pace and I managed 2.4. There were around 1500 people riding and there were splinters of groups all over the place. Decent pace though and nice to get more Ks under the belt to take me up to 179/500Km.

27th \\ Day 4

After Storm Bella made herself noisy with wind and rain during the night the clear day was literally the calm after the storm. Fortunately, We were not affected badly by the storm and it would have been very possible for me to ride outside however, family life in the holidays saw me making soup whilst my wife was out running and then that meant I was looking at Zwift for some indoor Ks after lunch.

There weren’t any group rides I fancied joining so I put a workout together on the Greater London Flat route and planted myself at 200W for 2 hours. No intervals, no breaks just solid through to finish. I didn’t have any films lined up so was just listening to music, but with half an hour to go I was looking for further inspiration to finish. I had a BBC series saved on YouTube called; Royal Marines: Behind the Lines. The first episode featured a group of marines getting trained up by the Mountain Leader Training Cadre. All hard men, doing hard shit. Just what I needed to put my light turbo work into perspective.

The session harvested just over 77Km, which I was happy with, taking the total up to 257/500Km.

28th \\ Day 5

A grey day with lots of dense mist wasn’t massively inspiring, also had a few things to sort out. The house needed tidying post Christmas laziness, I needed to drop off some ladders to a mate and we had a courier coming to collect a sofa that we’d sold on eBay. It was also the final day of my sons enforced isolation due to a positive case in his class bubble, so we were going to head out for a family walk later in the afternoon. all this meant more turbo for today’s contribution.

My preference was to join a JETT group ride at 11:40, but this clashed with the bloody sofa pick up, so I decided to have lunch then get on afterwards. I rode for 30 mins just easy as a warm up and then joined a group ride with 3R advertised at 2.7W/Kg. I knew I would only do an hour of the ride as I would need to climb off and get ready for the family walk after that long.

The cumulative distance was making itself known in the legs and staying in the 3R group was challenging, lots of people on the ride were commenting on the difference between the actual pace (which was higher) and the advertised pace – this is all very normal though so wasn’t an issue for me.

Annoyingly, after around 35 minutes a pop up appeared on my screen telling me I had low battery and this notification froze Zwift! So, I had to exit and then resume the activity that was interrupted, upon resumption Zwift looks to find the riders you were riding with but on this occasion it was unsuccessful and it had me riding in the air!

I continued on for another 15 minutes by myself at the same pace I had been riding at in the group, but it’s never the same after you’ve moved away from the main group. I knocked it on the head after another 15 minutes to go off for my family walk. Progress was taken to 306/500Km.

29th \\ Day 6

With my wife working I was on duty looking after the kids, so we headed out for a 13.5Km hike into town and up through the fields for a circular loop back to our house. We walked into town with some lovely big flakes of snow falling, but unfortunately it didn’t settle and soon stopped. The kids did very well and enjoyed the walk with all the incentivising snacks. In the afternoon I had arranged for a tradesman to come and discuss a job on the house, so this meant my F500 contribution for the day would have to be done after dinner.

I joined the usual Tuesday night ride with JETT on Zwift. The ride is billed as a warm up ride for a race which starts 10 minutes after the warm up ride finishes, but honestly the warm up ride is quite enough for me on its own. The usual Japanese discipline (for all riders sticking together in a group) was on show and it was a really enjoyable ride for me. We covered one of the new Watopia expansion routes called the Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop, and I thought it was a decent addition which had some flat, some up and some rollers. With only a few minutes to go until the end, the ride leader let everyone fly off, and he timed this so that we made our efforts up the biggest climb of the route.

As the JETT ride was 50 minutes which covered 30Km, I felt like riding on more to round up to 50Km. So, I carried on afterwards at roughly the pace we had been riding at. The legs felt good and I was able to push on nicely, heading for the desert flats to maximise the distance. I ended up riding with a few others, recognising a name here and there from the group ride. I really enjoyed the session and it took me up to 356/500Km with 2 days left to complete.

30th \\ Day 7

Again my wife was working and I was looking after the kids, and I think it’s always good to get them outside. The temperature was near 0degC and almost all surfaces outside had a white layer of frost, so we wrapped up and went off for a walk to the supermarket to get some things for lunch. There was a lot of ice around on the roads and pavements and it was precarious at times just walking. In my view, even if I wasn’t minding the kids today, an outside ride wouldn’t be worth the risk of riding on such a road condition.

Later in the day, not too long before my wife finished work the kids decided to watch a movie and I took that opportunity to head into the garage and get the days contribution done. Maximising Kms was the aim with just 2 days left to go, there were no group rides that I felt like joining so I selected the Fan Flats to ride around in Richmond – a short, flat urban circuit. After a brief warm up I planted myself at 200W and stayed there for 2 hours, no intervals, no breaks. Although designed to eat the Kms up, this kind of block riding helps my endurance capability, so I’m happy to do it even if it does get tough in the second hour.

Wrapping up the session I’d ridden another 80Km, taking me up to 456/500Km. So just 64k left to go. I also levelled up to 35 in Zwift and earned myself some yellow Mavic shoes.

31st \\ Day 8

A lazy morning, and some jobs around the house had to be done and again the weather was below freezing with a hard frost. I kind of wanted to finish the challenge with an outside ride (seeing as I had started it with one), so it was best to wait until after lunch to give the sun a chance to work it’s melting magic on the road ice.

I plotted a 65Km route to cover the remaining 64Km left of the 500, and it was a nice route. I headed out East of town and then made an anti clockwise loop around our home town. There were some roads where it was very icy under wheel and it was just caution and fortune that saw me remain upright. I met another cyclist who was also completing his Festive 500 and he also had comments on the road conditions being very slippy and dangerous.

Nonetheless, a late afternoon ride on a clear day in the winter will always provide some nice views, and this ride gave me plenty.

Arriving home just as it got dark, this was a lovely end to my first Festive 500. Had it not been for the allowance of virtual rides, I would not have completed the challenge and this is mostly due to the time constraints I have inside the family. But this is where the turbo trainer is brilliant, as I can be “at home” but still getting turbo work done, which makes a massive difference for my home set up.

If I do the Festive 500 again, it would either have to be something similar to this year or would have to be done in a oner on the road as a DIY Audax. Overall I’ve enjoyed the Festive 500, it has felt like a duty on a few days but I’ve enjoyed drilling it on the turbo and also opening and closing with lovely outside rides, albeit on sketchy road conditions.