Events: The 2019 Rapha Festive 500 Day Eight
Ride Distance: 77 Miles/ -- Miles Remain
Cover photo is lifted from rapha.cc. We do not own the rights to it.
(2020) Seventy-seven miles’ balance is a see-saw distance. Take it or leave it. It was the final day of the Rapha Festive 500, an eight-day cycling challenge encouraging riders to cover 500 kilometers. Seventy-seven miles was close enough to be considered, but far enough to dismiss the entire attempt. After riding in Day Seven’s Belgian weather, there was little left to prove. To be successful, I had to abandon the General George Washington houses of Bucks County. To head south and return north would require too much climbing to get the distance in before dark. A flat repetitive route was my only hope.
After abandoning the General Washington sites, the plan was simple: I would ride my stand-by route that is fifteen miles, return home, start my new favorite stand-by that is twenty miles, return home and repeat. What sounds like the most boring attempt to cover 70+ miles evolved into something more. After saturating myself the day before, the fairly mild New Year’s Eve conditions provided as much luck as one could accrue to go long.
Many thoughts propelled me through the double looping route, but one thought occupied me heavily: How could I change up the order to benefit my sanity? The approach varied by the minute. I departed and hit the fifteen-mile clockwise loop. There was concern as the sky darkened the farther east I went. Into exposed areas provided a morale-boosting tailwind. As quickly as it felt, the first loop was completed. I was onto the twenty-mile loop.
The twenty-mile counter-clockwise loop is a relatively flat affair that heads northeast to southwest. Recently discovered, the route is remarkably beautiful and peaceful. It possesses one excellent Festive 500 trait: It is fast. As quickly as I crossed the threshold of the loop I made the turn for home and picked up that powerful tailwind. This sent me rocketing toward home and boosting spirits further. Curiously, this loop was in abundant sunshine. The remaining laps were reshuffled to allow the final miles on the current road.
In nearly identical time as the first (shorter) circle, I returned home to do the first loop in reverse. This put me in the headwind in exposed areas. It is always interesting to do a favorite route backwards and this one was no exception. Once again the skies hovered dark over this area of the ride. Sunset was becoming a very real concern as was the cloud cover. Without a light, my ride and my Festive would look very different.
Heading out for the final loop was a daring attempt. Bank signs blazed the time and temperature. Neither were in my favor. The light was fading; the thermometer was falling. On a clear day there would be ample time. Alternate routes were inventoried in case darkness forced a turn for home. Then the official turn was made under the sunny portion of the course and that magical tailwind kicked in. I ripped home and started doing maths to figure out what was needed to cross the 500 kilometer threshold. Earlier in the day the calculator stated I needed a scant 74+ miles to succeed. For good measure I rounded up to 75 miles by adding a small loop near home with some pathetic loops around the neighborhood. Ride stopped. Dark out. Smug to have finished the Festive 500. I rolled into the garage, uploaded the route, took off my cycling kit, and waited for my Festive badge to roll into my Strava.
Except it didn’t.
To have come all this way and roll only 499.3 kilometers was a kick to the ego. The mileage had been compensated, so how did I come up so short? Would it be completely awesome to forego the final quarter-mile and leave the Festive 499.3 in place? In the future I would probably regret everything about that last thought. It gnawed at me as I sat on the couch post-ride. To avoid devoting an entire paragraph to one final quarter-mile, I hopped on the Mule bike and rode to the convenience store for ‘victory’ gummy bears. I had completed the entire day’s seventy-five plus miles on a bottle and a half of water and no nutrition. My body was in need of some food, so I got it.
In the beginning I forecasted the Festive 500 would take a modest rider twenty hours to complete. In an attempt to do everything both on and off the bike, I forced the pace in nearly every ride. Unfortunately some George Washington locations were too far to be accessed, some were difficult to find, and others no longer existed. (Newtown, PA, tore down one Washington sleep location, felt guilty and compensated by erecting a more modern version, only to be dissatisfied and tear it down in favor of a gas station.) In the process of researching locations, some great information was gathered at the benefit of riding 500 kilometers. In that light, the Festive 500 will carry on.
George Washington’s victory in Trenton would gain momentum with another victory in Princeton, NJ, shortly after. He encamped in Morristown, NJ. Washington’s win in Trenton by crossing the ice-choked Delaware River gave his army an enlistment boost. (Washington’s second encampment in Morristown, NJ, in 1779 would be a winter encampment failure.) To be able to ride dozens of miles around Bucks County and feel the presence of a general and his army who established The Great Experiment is a remarkable experience. We are already plotting to visit the remaining locations soon.
