2025. I still can't believe it has arrived so soon. I remember sitting in my class at school one lunchtime and discussing how far away the year 2000 seemed. It still does, only in the wrong direction. No, actually it seems like yesterday, which makes 2025 even more worrisome. In another 25 years I will be (I keep telling myself this, I WILL BE!) older than both my parents were at their deaths by a hefty margin.
It's only 8 years since I set out to achieve the Rapha Festive 500 on a cool Christmas Eve. A fairly benign 200km DIY Audax kicked off the attempt, to be followed by three 100km before New Year's Eve. I had a desultory entry the following year, but I'd realised it's actually a fairly miserable experience if you are not careful. For a start, apart from occasional social rides, hardly anyone else wants to ride at Christmas. The weather is usually rubbish, and the daylight is fleeting. I've known people who go for the little and often strategy, to some success. But that "little" amounts to an average of 62.5km per day - every day if you ride the minimum - which is still around 2-3 hours outside at a time you want to be sociable. Or eating and drinking, or watching football. Or whatever.
If you go for the long-rides strategy, you commit to doing a fair amount of riding in the dark, and are usually pretty knackered on the days in between. Or at least I am.
So I had long ago decided it was an event ticked off, accomplished and not to be repeated, for the good of my Christmas sanity and the like. That doesn't mean I couldn't if I wanted, blah, blah, blah. It's not just physical, it's majorly psychological, in my opinion anyway.
That's not to say I have left compulsive behaviour behind. Quite the reverse. At the start of December I realised that because of the knee malarkey, I hadn't ridden a 161 km ride at all this year. So I thought I better put that right and made a few high-level plans. Then whilst chatting to Martyn about it, he offered to join me, which seemed a good excuse for a long ride at Christmas and plans were hatched into something a bit more concrete. Then we decided that if we were going to do 161 km we might as well do 200, and also knock off a bit of the | North Dorset Trailway Network, part of the former S & D Railway, into the bargain.
Unfortunately at the 11th hour Martyn had to duck out to deal with a domestic crisis, and as I was all kitted out, I decided I might as well just go anyway. Last Friday was one of those horrible drizzle days, and visibility was very poor, so equipped in my Proviz commuting jacket for added safety, off I trundled. My route is 2024 or bust · Ride with GPS, and if I could have seen further than about 50 yards, I'm sure it would have been amazing. It was good to accomplish a 200 for the first time in over a year, and I'm sure I will do it again on a sunny day. At least there was virtually no wind, so I made reasonable time. I even found a couple of well-positioned, and very pleasant cafes, so the ride has everything really. Below is my one photo of the day, such were the unphotogenic conditions.
Cut to a couple of days later there was that social ride, with Jon, completing his Festive 500 by an amazing feat of Go Medium - no massive rides, but to do it with 2 days to spare is quite something. Then again, he's an amazing rider, so I'm not too surprised, and he did it at a very rapid pace too, on a road bike I'd guess, apart from one slightly shorter indoor ride. He joked that I still had time to do it, which elicited the usual response from me, ending in off I think, and I thought no more of it.
But then things happen don't they? I ended up doing a few more KMs on the Sunday than I'd planned. About 20 more actually, and combined with the solo gravel spin I'd done on Christmas Eve, and the short (7km) ride I did on a Watt bike at the gym on Monday night, I realised I was "only" about 150km short.
Cue next thought. I'd missed the Somerset 100 in May because of the knee injury but Mark Cox, organiser in chief gave me a12-month pass to get it done. What if I went out on NYE and did the 100km route from Sweets, with riding there and back, I could make it up to a 161km ride and hit the target by nightfall. So it's not my fault, what else could I do? I decided to use the gravel bike again, in fact all of my 503 outdoor km were on it, and although I'm not as good a rider as Jon, mine was a bit hillier I think. And outside. Just saying.
A few more photos from that day are below. It was a bit windier this time, but the weather was a bit brighter too, with fleeting sunshine.
So what can I learn from all this? Compulsions aside, am I not done yet with ticking off meaningless events, honestly what is the actual point? True, I do feel amazingly pleased with myself, but honestly, where is this all going to stop? I thought I was so over this all by now but apparently not. Martyn keeps talking about Super Randoneur. I tell you now I am not tempted in the slightest. No really. Anyway, one of his events is the Brevet Cymru - the same day we play Spurs at home - and I have done it before. It's hard, why would I do that again?
I think the truth of it, if there is such a thing, is that I just like riding my bike. It isn't any more complicated than that. And that is an encouraging thought.
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