Whatever your opinion of Rapha (and nearly everyone has one), it's hard to argue that the Festive 500 is not a good thing.

Riding your bike more is generally considered to be a good thing, so joining a world wide challenge to help you ride your bike more can only add to that good thing. 

But what is the Rapha Festive 500? Now in its 12th year, the #festive500 (you have to use a hashtag every time you type it, it's the law) is a Strava challenge to ride 500km in 8 days. 

Sounds pretty ok, right? 62.5km per day doesn't sound bad, what's the big deal? Well, those 8 days happen to fall in between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve!

Not so easy now, is it? Can you get out to do 62.5km on Christmas day? Indoor rides on the trainer absolutely do count, but those "purists" will always scoff. You know the ones.

All kms have to be ridden within the 8 days. But the 25th Dec is probably a no go, so that's 71.2km... and what about NYE? It starts to get tough pretty quickly. 

However it can be done! Click Here to read our top tips on how to complete the Rapha Festive 500.

Once you've got your strategy in place, just hit the link below and sign up to the Strava challenge.

Festive 500 Strava Challenge - Enter Here

It's much, much easier with friends

No surprises this is one of our top tips (the top tip, actually), but it's so so true. Accountability is a big thing when it comes to a challenge.

Who is relying on me to finish this? Am I letting anyone else down? Riding with a group, or even just a friend or two, will greatly increase your chances of success.

So join a London group ride. We've got plenty of rides going out over the period, with even more being posted daily in our Members Only Forum. 

Put it on Strava

The old mantra really does apply here. The satisfying feeling of seeing your weekly KM count on Strava click over 500km is a joy, but it's even better when it happens at Christmas.

So join the Strava challenge to make sure you get extra kudos for your effort.

So there you have it. The Festive 500 really isn't that complicated. It's riding 500km in 8 days. If you get it right, it can be really fun and a very satisfying challenge.

*Whilst you don't have to upload anything to social media if you don't want to, we'd love you to tag us in your posts and stories (@dirtywknd) so we can shout about your achievements.