Back on my bike again

After eight consecutive rest days I was finally back in the saddle today! I expected to be out of shape but it actually was a nice ride. When I got home I had been out for three hours and fifteen minutes with an average speed of 25 km/h and a average heart rate of 149. It was -10C at the start of the ride and -4C when I got home, but 30 kilometers north of Falun, where I live, it was as cold as -14.5C ( that is 5.9F ). We had to increase the intensity so that we wouldn't become ice scupltures and after a while we got to some climbes that lowered the speed and got our heart rates up a bit. When we got to the top it was only -10C and from then on it got warmer. Because of all the rest days I had planned to be wheel sucking all day long but after about an hour, when it got that cold, my legs where going numb so I had to go to the front to get that heart rate up.
If we ignore that it was so cold today, it actually was a beautiful day! I took some pictures for you:

I really love this proper Swedish winter, it's so beautiful. I feel really blessed to live in a place where we have  these seasons that differ so greatly.

I won the Rapha Festive 500!

Yesterday Rapha announced the winners of their Rapha Festive 500. I thought that I was going to be third, or at least top five due to the amounts of votes I had received. An incredible result! But as I kept on reading I couldn't find my name anywhere.. Until I got to the bottom of the page, I HAD WON THE CONTEST!
I really can't describe the feeling, I am so greatful for this.
I did the Rapha Festive 500 last year as well and the best thing with this challenge is that it motivates people to get out and ride their bikes. It was such a great feeling of making those 500 k. Next great feeling was when I saw that I was one of the 1000 people riding their 500k or more that made their top 10 shortlist. Then during the final when  I saw the support I received from my friends in the vote, I was truly touched. Such a great challenge and I'll be doing it again next year, I hope you do it to!

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!