The Strava Festive 500 starts tomorrow
 

aaaaaaand of course it's supposed to rain in the AM. I'm hoping to knock 80-100 miles off the 310 total tomorrow to set me up for the rest of the potentially rainy week.

Anybody else doing it? I'll probably be doing laps of SART and SGRT, so try not to run me over as you go blasting by. :o

I have to work tomorrow...but plan on commuting to get a very small amt of mileage.

gonna try to knock out 50-60 miles before too much rain & work at 3pm. would shoot for 80 miles but knees have been non-cooperative recently.

I was hoping to do the same, but rain presents a bit of a problem. My track record with Strava challenges has been lousy, I haven't completed a single one since the 105k ft climbing challenge in spring. I'll try extra hard.

The forecast does not look too bad, BTW. Rain should be mostly over by 10 AM, after that it's partly cloudy and temps of 55-60 F. More rain scheduled for Wednesday, the rest of the week should be cool but dry.

I honestly have no idea what I'll do if it's raining when I plan on leaving at 7 am... *sigh*. Hopefully I'll man up and hit the road. :)

I did manage the 79 miles in one ride challenge back in November, that was pretty simple though.

Rode to work...so have 5.7 miles down...only 305 to go!

On my way to work...looking south along SGRT from middle of bridge just south of Carson as I was heading west instead of South
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...58971709_n.jpg

I left at 8:30, got rained on all the way to Seal Beach, which was oddly fun. Got my first flat about 8 miles from the beach and I periodically inflated to make it to that little water fountain. Couldn't find the puncture and thought maybe the valve stem was bad, so I replaced the tire. Flat #2 happened around Dog Beach, this time I found the little speck of glass in the tread. Now I'm out of CO2 and the tire was getting soft by the time I got to my in-laws in costa mesa, so i bailed. :( 45 miles or so out of the intended 80, not a good start.

3 flats though, sheesh. And the tubes I put in were brand new. *sigh*

I'm getting a micro frame pump, that's the last straw.

not a good start here either. got 12 miles into an intended 50-60 miler and got a front flat. noticed a big slash in the newish tire. always carry 2 inner tubes so decided to do some riding a little closer to home since bike stores not open xmas day & i couldn't buy a new tire/more tubes. turned around and got another front flat after approx 3 miles even while being careful and picking my way through any potential problems. remembered i had a $5 bill so put that between the slash and my last inner tube. helped somewhat i guess since i flatted again in the last mile and had to limp home. grrr. now gotta wait till 10 am tomorrow to pick up a new tire and some tubes. so much for an early start before work. will be lucky to get 50 miles in tomorrow.

the best part? i paused strava at the beginning of the first flat change and forgot to restart. so much holiday fail...

Ah, thanks for making me feel better. ;)

I ended up throwin my tire away... it had so many little cuts in the "tread" area... only 900 miles on that dumb thing too. i do keep spare tires on hand though, so i just put on a new tire, patched up all my flat tubes (flats were all in different spots, ugh) and I'm down to my last 3 CO2 carts & last new tube... *sigh*. thank goodness for Amazon Prime.

Man, this has been a bust for me so far D: Got a late start due to rain on the 24th and had to work that evening. ~35 miles. Intended to ride on the 25th, family wanted to do stuff in morning, had to nap after to go to work at midnight. Figured I'd go after I got home from work... I got home at ~4pm D: Finally going to get another ride in today. Off work on Saturday, not sure about Sunday.. might end up off, might not.

this. i'll be fortunate to knock out 2/3 of the challenge and only cuz i'm planning on a century on saturday. guess there's always next year and/or the next challenge.

Me also. I intended to get 80 in on Monday and even left while it was raining (HTFU!) but 3 flats later I bailed at 45 miles...
No ride Christmas due to a variety of Executive Committee protests.
Yesterday, intended to get 80 in again, but got a late start due to rain and the SGRT was flooded north of the 10, so I only got about 60.
Had commitments today so i got up at the bloody crack of dawn and got 35 miles in 42 degrees... (brr)
taking the kids to the zoo tomorrow, no rides...

Honestly, my legs are so tired today... I can theoretically get 60 in each of Saturday, Sunday and Monday but I really doubt that will happen. it's not fun right now! Maybe I'll have a different opinion Saturday after walking around the SD zoo all day Friday. We'll see. I have low expectations. :D

If it's any consolation, it's going even worse here. :) I have a sore throat and it's been pretty cold all day, maybe I should have stayed home. Put on leg warmers and a jacket and risked 10 miles at the slowest possible pace. Which gets me to 53 miles, with 4 days left.

Does not look like it will get warmer any time soon. If I feel substantially better tomorrow, I might try to put in 50-60 and that will leave me with 200 to do in the last three days.

Well, it's a small consolation, thanks for sharing. :D I guess tomorrow is a mandatory day off, so I'll hit the road early Saturday morning and see how I feel. If it's good enough to do an 80 mile (or more) loop around my neighborhood then perhaps I can salvage things... but I'm getting the "why are you gone all the time" looks from my wife. If I'm not feeling the joy, i'll probably cut it short at 53 miles and leave 2012 with 3000 miles in the bank (a personal high) so it's not all bad.

Leaving at 5 am for a ride in July is so much more pleasant than doing it in December.

Say, how'd you get your veloviewer chart backwards - I like that.

It's not backwards :( It's a reflection of my propensity to go on long slow exploration rides.

Also, about half of the bump is a bunch of slow mountain centuries up in Los Angeles area from last spring. This is the biggest culprit: http://app.strava.com/activities/7534604 144 segments with the median score of 14.3.

I reckon if that chart is only showing placings from 0-100 (how do you place 0th anyway) then 95% of mine are off to the right. I'm currently 1819th / 2240 on the gate to the shack segment... and dropping all the time. :D

Well, got a bit later start than planned today and managed to stretch it to 60 miles. Tomorrow will only be able to manage maybe 20-35 after work. Gonna have to haul ass Sa/Su/M

Since it's a score chart, it's supposed to show percentages. 1819th / 2240 is 81% from the top (left) or 19% from the bottom.

However, it seems that veloviewer does not have the correct placings for you. Read this http://veloviewer.com/blog/optimisti...ngs-bug-fixed/

I noticed when they fixed that bug... that was strava reporting a gaggle of people as say, 3rd, even if you'd normally consider them all tied for 10th, just because they had the 3rd fastest time. My rankings took a dump that day I tell you! I'd tell you where my KOMs are but it's embarassing. LOL

I'm pretty sure that you didn't update ALL your placings after the bug fix. For example, Veloviewer is still showing you 1014th/2238 on Gate->Shack: http://veloviewer.com/SegmentDetails...gmentId=830079

Interesting! I think that's where I started when I first did it back in May and I have clicked on every single update button they own multiple times in the last few weeks. I'll have to check into that again. Not that I'm overly concerned, I'm pretty aware that I'm poky.

those of us (my hand is raised) not so successful with this rapha festive 500 challenge now have a new strava challenge to look forward to in january...here's hoping this one goes better.

Leaving in a bit...to try and get in 45+ miles (need 45 per day between now and Monday) to reach 500kms. My legs are a tad tired. My knee is not exactly singing my praises and dang it it is COLD and I have pretty much zilch for cold weather stuff. I wear a long sleeve base layer I got at Target last year when I went to Washington state in January...and arm warmers.

My weather app says it is 43 in Lakewood right now...my plan is to leave around 9am...and it says it should be up to 52 by then. Boy I hope so.

Man, got home late from work today, managed a paltry 20. Well, I only need 195 more miles o.o

Alright Ham - I've half-hammed my sig but it's choking on the 250+ button... I didn't realize I had to click on every single placing check button to get the thing correct.

I'll have a backwards sig in no time. Woo hoo!