Continuing on from the last post, today I complete the Rapha 500km Festive Week Challenge.
Sixth ride
I got guilt tripped by my wife into spending time with her. This is all part of the challenge that I talked about in my last post, how to juggle a balance between life and bike. I managed to combine the two together on this day although didn’t get too far. We rode our new mountain bikes to go get some things done and have a coffee.
Morven on her new MTB
My wife, Morven, got new pedals for Christmas. Now she can actually try riding her new bike, as previously she struggled a bit riding on SPD pedals with normal flat sole shoes. It’s a bit too early in her riding for her to try clipless, so flat bed pedals is the way to go for now. She seemed to enjoy it a bit more on her fourth ride, and she got four times the distance she got last time.
I was also wearing a new t-shirt that she gave me for Christmas, which says “Ride Heaps”. It’s funny, because in South Australia we tend to use the word ‘heaps’ a lot. Like we say “oh that is heaps good!” Anyway, moving on …
Riding with my wife, with her new pedals
Seventh ride
Today I just wanted to finish off the 500km challenge. I had something like 147 km that I had to ride, and once I got to 100 I thought that I might as well crack my previous best distance of 174 and make it to 200. Today was a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, since I had to ride 147 km in one day anyway. It wasn’t so difficult, just took a very long time, and now I’m rather tired. As funny as it may seem, I figured leaving the hills riding toward the end would be a good idea, so that way the last 15 km of the ride would be mostly all downhill, as oppose to riding 25km up a gradual uphill to get back from the beach.
Rapha 500 km Festive Week Challenge – check! Cracking the 200 km barrier in one day – check!
Riding along the coast to get to Outer Harbour
Hallett Cove Beach
Mt Lofty Summit
Not that it was a competition, I’m pretty happy with myself for being ranked 24th on Strava at my time of completion. I expect (and hope!) my ranking drops significantly as I have tomorrow as a rest day and concentrate on shorter but more powerful mountain bike rides for the rest of the week (specific training to get where I want to be).
