Wow, its that time of the year already! Rapha Festive 500 is back! The time for relaxation and indulging on great tasting foods during the festive season is beckoning… but for some of us, the challenge of completing 500kms or more during the last week of the year can give you justification to eat those Xmas season foods and not feel too guilty. If you take up this challenge, you’ll be part of 1,700 riders world-wide that signed up for the challenge via Strava. Thats right, its more than 1,700 riders and growing world-wide as this Challenge spreads. If you have a GPS device or iPhone/android, you can sign up with Strava for free. It’s really cool for motivation and keeping track of your personal best times on your favorite climbs etc. Check it out.

Like last year, I will be doing this Rapha Festive Challenge here in the deep cold Chinese winter. I used my Bikedan in Asia blog site as the platform for creating inspiring submissions about riding in and around Hangzhou City. I was lucky enough to be second place overall in the hotly contested competition among some extremely classy submissions.

An article also appeared on China Travel about the Rapha Festive 500, which is an interesting read.

It is truly a Ride to Redemption! I hope that many riders here in Asia will join this challenge and journey with me in the final days of 2011. It will be inspirational and new fitness levels will be achieved as well as setting yourself a solid training platform to launch yourself into 2012!  Good luck and harden up even when the weather turns nasty.  Just make sure you are well bundled up in some choice winter riding gear.  Check out my 12 Tips for Winter Riding on Matador Network or a more recent post on Cyclingtime or can read about the top ten tips for riding in the rain.

Happy riding! If you see me on Strava or stop by my blog, please let me know how your are doing with the challenge 🙂