Rapha Festive 500: The Vote

The Vote started today, I'm one of the 28 who is in the final! You can vote for me by pressing "like" here.

This is me before going to work this morning:

This is me arriving to work:

-16 degrees C today, man that was cold!

Rapha Festive 500 - I made it into their shortlist!

With this photo Rapha is ranking me as #5 in their shortlist! Read more about it here. Next week you will be able to vote for your favorite, and the winner gets a Trek Madone 6.9!

Rapha 500 - black and white

Ever since the Rapha Festive 500 I have been feeling a bit under the weather. I cough, I have a sore throat and a headache. It's now the fourth day of 2012 and I've got 0 minutes of training so far. To break the blog-silence I have picked out a few photos from the Rapha 500 and turned them into black and white.

Rapha Festive 500 - day 9

I did it!

All 500 of them. Thanks to the 6 hours in the saddle this friday I only had to do 70.63 kilometers on New Year's Eve to complete the Rapha Festive 500. I decided on a route with mostly gravel roads to have a really nice ending to this challenge. No traffic, beautiful scenery and just enjoy the accomplishment. That what was my plan anyway..

When I planned this I was thinking frozen gravel roads with a surface like sandpaper but I ended up with pure ice. In the beginning the ice was smooth and everything was going great. It was -5 C outside giving the surroundings a frozen look.

After a while the ice got all rough on me and my fender mount. This part was good balance training but not really the enjoyable ride I had planned on. Having promised my wife that I was going to complete the ride in less then three hours this was destroying that plan. 

During the first 45 minutes of the ride I had spent 35 of them on pure ice and it was therefore nice to get back out on more attackable roads where I could pick up some speed again. The ice on the lakes looked great for ice skating and a lot of people was enjoying this winter day out on the ice.

After a few kilometers I suddely found a winter landscape, this is how it should look this time of the year. It was very beautiful and it gave me some extra energy.

Here I am climbing one of the two longer climbs of the day, gaining about 150 meters of altitude. Up on the top I saw a moose! I tried to take a picture of it but with my smart phone in a plastic bag in my back pocket and with a vest over my jersey it took to long and the moose was in the forest before I could press the shutter button. In 2010 I was a bit faster with the camera and took this picture of a moose.

More icy roads, but smooth ice this time

One week ago the storm Dagmar passed Sweden and there is still about 1000 people that had to celebrate New Years Eve without electricity. 

Todays numbers. Complete Garmin data for day 9 is here and below is my data for this Rapha Festive 500:

Thank you Rapha for this challenge! I started after eleven days of resting due to a cold and didn't know how my body would respond but it has gone great and I am now much stronger. This has been good for me and given me a good foundation for a great 2012. I had a goal of making this without using valuable family time and it was actually only this last ride that effected the family. But on the other hand I had a planned ride today wich I am not attending. So I think it breaks even.. 

I hope you all have a Happy New Year! 

Rapha Festve 500 - day 8

You know that feeling when your kids wake you up at 3 am and you just want to go out for a ride? Today I did just that. At 3:42 am I started my Garmin and headed out in the darkness, again. My goal was to do about 120 km with an average speed of 25 km/h so I wouldn't be late for work. I did the same route as I did on the last day of the Festive 500 last year. In 2010 we had -12∘C and a lot more snow so I knew I was going to be faster this year.

-2∘C today so I had my warm gloves on. 

After riding about an hour and a half in mostly dark forests it was nice to ride through some villages with street lights and houses with lamps turned on.

Still happy!

When I was riding through Leksand I was about half way. Here I ate a Snickers and drank a little Coke, which I had brought with me. My average speed here was 25.0 km/h. I felt that I had been in the saddle for 2 hours and 20 minutes but I wasn't exhausted or anything. In addition to the candy and Coke the wind was now going to be in my back so my confidence was high. From here on I could take it a bit easier yet still go faster, the perfect combination!

When I left Leksand I set up a goal to rase the average speed from 25.0 to 26.0 and when I arrived at work my Garmin told me that I had an average speed of 26.1! It was a balance act trying to reach that goal but at the same time trying to preserve as much energy as possible. I had to ride home from work as well!

115.4 kilometers in 4 hours and 25 minutes with an average heart rate of 144, look at the complete Garmin data here. I never got to see the sunrise because at this time of year the sun rises at about 9 am.

Today I was only working half-day and I ate a classic Swedish shrimp sandwich, or Räkmacka as we call it.

After work it was time to sit in the saddle again, but this time in daylight!

Gravel/ice roads

Not quite as fast as my shadow

Studded tire, icy road and forest. No surprise here!

I decided for a detour when i got to Falun and caught up with some friends. Really nice with some company when my legs had started to hurt, even if it only lasted about 15 minutes or so.

Adding 43.03 kilometers to the morning ride gives me 158.4 kilometers today and 429.37 kilometers in total during this Rapha Festive 500. You'll find Garmin data for my ride home here.

158.4 kilometers in 6 hours and 3 minutes and a half-day at work and still I made it home before 2 pm!