Have you met your cycling goals for 2022? If not yet, Rapha wants to motivate you to crush the last week of the year with their 12th annual Festive 500 between Christmas and New Year’s. As always, they have some special limited edition Festive 500 kit to egg you on whether you are riding inside or outside, digital bragging rights for those that go the distance, and prizes on offer like an OPEN UP, plus more from Wahoo, POC, Snow Peak & Campagnolo…
2022’s 12th annual Rapha Festive 500
The Rapha Festive 500 is simple in concept – ride 500 kilometers in the final 7 days of the year, from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve. But in practice, it is often quite a bit harder since the almost 90% of the world’s population living in the Northern Hemisphere are currently in the deep throes of winter. (Editor’s note: It is currently -5°C/23°F with blowing snow out the window, as Cory wrote this up today. Time for fat biking, which doesn’t really rack up the kms very quickly!)
Nonetheless, more than a hundred thousand of us fellow crazy cyclists have already signed up for the Festive 500 challenge on Strava to give it a go. To make it more reasonable in recent years, Rapha & Strava did agree to make virtual indoor rides eligible too, if you really can’t get outside to log those miles.
Complete it and you get at minimum a digital badge on your Strava profile, but you’ll also be entered in a raffle where one cyclist will ride away with a new Open UP carbon gravel bike kitted out with a Campy Ekar 1×13 groupset.
Real-world meatspace group rides are organized through Rapha clubhouses worldwide (find one on the Festive 500 page). But if you can’t make one of those, you have no excuse not to join in on Zwift. Every two hours during the entire Strava Challenge, a new Festive 500 Zwift group ride will start, so you’ll always be able to hop on, even in between busy holiday family obligations.
Spirit of the F500 Awards too!
Beyond just cranking out the distance, Raphe wants to also reward those who tell a good story, too. So celebrate your effort (successful or not) to add some more kilometers to your annual total however you deem fit. Maybe back some Festive 500 cookies, illustrate a comic of your feeble F500 attempt, or simply document your rides on photo or film. Figure out how to share what motivates you to ride through the darkest days of the winter, and Rapha will reward those exhibiting the Spirit of the Festive 500 with another batch of prizes, including more gear from Wahoo, POC, Snow Peak & Campagnolo.
Festive 500 limited edition cycling kit – indoors & outdoors
Each year, Rapha puts together a limited edition collection of riding kit to help motivate cyclists to reach the 500km goal. This year’s Festive 500 kit features a light & pastel-colored design inspired by the geometric blocks of a calendar overlaid with graphics based on the golden ratio – a nod to finding a perfect human balance between holiday time with family & time on the bike.
Available for men & women, there are a few pieces of outdoor riding kit – a cool-weather or mid-layer Pro Team long-sleeve Training Jersey curiously 135€ for men but 195€ for women, a simple 21€ Snood (read: Buff-like), or a nice 30€ merino wool Beanie hat.
For riders in warmer climes or sticking to virtual riding inside, there’s a couple of Indoor Training Tank tops (65€ for men or women), a 21€ cotton Cap, and 21€ Pro Team Socks. Lastly, a 17€ white Bidon water bottle and an 18€ cotton Musette that can serve on or off the bike, inside or out.
Rapha says you can order until Friday down under or Monday for much of the rest of the world, and still receive your gear before Christmas with Express shipping.
