Are you ready to join a Strava challenge and push yourself to see how many miles or activities you can knock out? One of the most popular Strava challenges is the Festive 500, which is 500km – 310 miles- over the eight days between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. That’s a solid commitment of nearly 20 hours of outside riding (Zwift miles don’t count for this one) and might not be for everyone. Once you’ve found a challenge that motivates you, here are a few tips to set yourself up for success:
- Make a plan in advance. Set your calendar with the amount of time or miles miles per day that you need to ride in order to complete your challenge.
- Pick routes that are interesting and fit your time or distance goals as these will motivate you every time you get on your bike.
- Ride with friends. Working towards a goal with a training partner is fun and keeps you accountable to each other. Hitting up a local group ride during your challenge period will help the time and miles fly by.
- Upload your rides. Use your Garmin, smart phone, or favorite GPS based cycling computer to record your activities and upload to the Strava app. If its not on Strava, does it even count? (hint: it doesn’t)
- Take care of your body. These challenges are meant to push you as a rider and that means that you’ll likely be stepping outside of your comfort zone. Listening to your body, getting plenty of rest, eating good food, and staying hydrated will go a long way towards ensuring your success.
- Make sure your bike is a ready as you are. Nothing will derail the best plans like an unhappy bike. Book a velofix service to be certain that your bike is as ready as you are.
Once you’ve set your calendar, picked out all of your favorite routes, called your riding buddies, and readied your equipment, all that’s left to do is go out and ride. Have fun and happy riding.