Rapha Festive 500 2016

Rapha Festive 500 - the true story from my country Poland. Between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve everything can happen in the polish latitude - snow, rain, cold, wind, frost... it's not Calpe or Gran Canaria. Only real cycling motherfuckers can complete Rapha challenge in these weather conditions.


24.12.2016

The first day was the hardest. Not only wind and frost was the difficulty. A little surprise was waitin' for me - thank you Road Service! - a thin layer of salt on the road ... after a few minutes all the salty shitty mud was on my face. However there was no time to think about all the unhappiness so I had to concetrate on my partners rear wheel. After 130 kilometers we were all satisfied with this ride, including shitty mud on our faces. Actually it's circa 25% of the Festive500 Challenge.

25.12.2016

Maybe the second day of the challenge could have been a little bit more favourable...but not this time. I've looked out of the window - it's been raining. Heavily. The weather forecast wasn't lying. OK, whatever, it doesn't matter. After all I'm not a pussy? Am I? The main target is to collect the festive500 kilometers, so the job got to be done. After 50 kilometrs ride in heavy rain I've had enough. My gloves were completely wet and I couldn't feel my fingers. I was already mentally broken - everybody knows this feeling - you'd like to do something, but your brain's already saying "no, no, no, not today fellas". In the rain everything is ugly so it's better to forget this day, go home, drink beer and go to sleep...or maybe before sleeping a little BJ from wifey for soul healing..."Honey, I'm hooome" :)

26.12.2016

This time I went with my two buddys which are strong bike-fuckers. It wasn't an easy pace for me,  but optimistic is the fact that the faster we rode the sooner we would get home. Finally it was a very nice ride through the picturesque countrysides. The best of it, was the stops for drinking hot tea.

27.12.2016

Active regeneration on the 30 kg bike of my father in law. It was an excellent evening sightseeinig Wroclaw - the capital city of the region where I live.

28.12.2016

The main difficulty of this day was the wind... no, no, it wasn't an usual wind - it was an orkan named (probably) Barbara. And it was blowing directly into my face, all the time. It was a trip between my two houses - old and new. I hope soon we'll be living in the bike paradise for each kind of cycling.

30.12.2016

Sometimes winter sun can also shine beautiful. It was definitly the best day of my Rapha challenge. Over 100 km lonely ride in beautiful natural circumstances. My eyes admired the tasty hilly views. Every kilometer I wanted to stop shortly for taking some pictures of the landscapes. By the way I climbed nearly 1000 meters on this route. It's almost theend of my 2016 challenge - the last 20 kilometres will be a dessert for next day.

31.12.2016

For this sunny and frosty morning I choosed my mountain bike to complete the challenge. The sun was low on the horizon yet so the sunbeams from beetwen the trees and long shadows on the ground were really impressive. It was a perfect day for photoshooting. And it's a good day to end this year. I wish you all thousand of kilometers on bike in the most beautiful places in the world, so I wish your strong legs to realize all of yours plans and other challenges! I wish you a happy happy new year!