Alternatives To The Rapha Festive 500

The Rapha Festive 500 is a challenge to ride 500 kilometers (310 miles) between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. I’ve never actually completed the Rapha Festive 500, sometimes for good reason and sometimes not.

For a long while, the miles only “counted” if you rode outside because, of course, Rapha follows the Velominati, and there’s some stupid unwritten rule that trainer miles don’t count. Also, Rule #5: Harden The Fuck Up.

Until this year, I never had a job that gave me enough vacation to take the time off between Christmas Eve and New Year’s. I also was never “hard” enough to ride 44 miles outside after work, in the dark, cold winter.

So, even when I rode 45 miles on the trainer on Zwift and usually hit 310 miles on New Year’s Eve, it never counted. And when I say “counted,” you got a Rapha Badge on Strava (which is yet another dick-measuring contest), maybe a 10% discount on Rapha’s already incredibly expensive cycling apparel, and you got to show off your Rapha-branded daily mileage log on Instagram.

I get it, okay? Challenging yourself can be fun. But over the past few years, I’ve realized the holidays are already stressful enough, and cycling is already selfish enough, that it’s like, why put this additional pressure to ride an average of 44 miles a day for 7 days in a row? That means finding a…