Great idea from Rapha. The Rapha Festive 500 challenges you to ride 500 kilometres (310 miles) December 23-31, 2011. Should you join, you and riders from around the world will attempt to escape the clutches of holiday indulgence by achieving this feat in just one week.

Finished on New Year’s Eve with a 220k jaunt around WOL (west of London), in the Chilterns, around Burnham, Maidenhead, Marlow, Princes Risborough, Aylesbury, Wendover, Great Missenden, Chalfonts, amongst others. There were some very impressive rides (I think the milder northern hemisphere winter helped) and I’m sure I’m not the only one taking a well-earned rest from the bike right now!

Using Strava and a GPS I logged about 770k during the Festive 500 which I thought is pretty respectable considering I started late and was working between Christmas and NYE.

The poor Kinesis suffered a bit though – I worked my way to the blue protective layer on a 25mm Marathon Plus and yesterday broke a spoke in the rear wheel yesterday as well as watched the bottom bracket spew its inners out. The cranks were moving about a centimetre side to side! Bye bye bearings. The HTC Sensation did well, logging over 9 hours of cycling yesterday with 7% still remaining on a single battery charge. It’s not going to last for a 24hr though, obviously so maybe a Garmin 800 with Extended battery pack is on the cards?