#girodilento 250 a festive riding challenge for people with commitments

It’s that time of year again as Rapha and Strava have announced their annual festive riding challenge. As with every other year I’ve spotted this, then seen the thousands of people who’ve joined in and thought “don’t these people have lives outside of cycling, or loved ones, or family commitments?” It’s not a moan, it’s a genuine question.

I’ve always liked the idea of riding the Festive 500 myself but as someone with a wife, young kids, family commitments including birthdays and travel all within the last week of December, 500kms is never going to happen, (unless I’m angling for a swift divorce, which I’m not). The festive season is also a time I look forward to spending some quality time with my wife and kids and riding moves into the background a touch.

So each year, I’ve found it frustrating that no one is running a challenge for the rest of us, those with busy lives, commitments etc but who would love to get some riding in where possible over the festive period.

With that in mind, last year I held the first #girodilento250 (http://girodilento.com/the-girodilento-festive-family-250km/) – a festive riding challenge for people, with lives, families and people they want/need to spend time with between December 24th and 31st.

It was good fun and brought out, shall we say, a less extreme bunch of cyclists , who did indeed have kids, wives, in-laws like me and who were also negotiating and going out for rides during the festive season, when they could get away with it. Most people seemed to hit their targets or at least got a bit more riding in than they’d previously expected.

So the #girodilento250 was born as an idea for those of us who’d like a challenge that can be wedged into the family stuff and I’m holding it again for 2013 (just like Rapha and Strava!).

The good people at Road.cc have kindly let me post this blog and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to do that as I’m hoping that more of you might want to join in.

As it’s a simple idea, I’m also keeping it as straightforward as possible to make it easy for you to join in should you wish to.

So here are the “rules”/guidelines as I see them:

1. Any riding goal up 250km is fine – you choose an amount that would be a good goal for you and works around your other commitments. 250km might be too far if you’ve got lots on, so choose a smaller amount if you’d like – there’s no minimum as long as it’s a goal for you.
2. To join in – you can leave a comment with how far you hope to ride or tweet your goal with the hashtag #girodilento250, so we can all keep up with the riding we’re all doing. It’s good to make a public declaration to commit yourself!
3. A simple way to log your rides if you’re on Strava is to join the girodilento club and use the hashtag #girodilento250 for each of your rides between December 24th and the 31st. The club can be found here: http://www.strava.com/clubs/girodilento-cycling If you do decide to join the club - It’ll make it easier to track your rides and to see how other people are getting on too. If you’re joining clubs on Strava, why not join the road.cc one too, if you haven’t already! As this isn’t an official Strava challenge there’s no fancy online tool tracking your mileage or a leader board other than the normal Strava club leader board. Maybe next year?
4. Photos of rides/riding are all good too – again if you can tag them #girodilento250, hopefully I can find them and share some of them. My Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/girodilento is a good place to share your ride pictures, as is Twitter, Instagram or any other platform of your choice. Last year it was great to get some of the stories from those riding and hopefully we can do this again.
5. There are no prizes for completion other than the warm glow of satisfaction of hitting your goal and still having time to spend with your loved ones. Even if you don’t hit your goal, hopefully you’ll still have got out and had a good ride or two, which is good for the soul. This challenge is all about finding a balance between normal life and riding and prizes didn’t seem to fit with that (to me anyway).

Any questions or suggestions, please leave a comment here, or on my blog, Facebook page or via Twitter (@girodilento).

If you like this idea – please jump in and have a go and also please share it with other people who ride – the more involved, the merrier …. and the more festive.

There’s also a version of this post with the same rules and guidelines on my own blog at: http://girodilento.com/girodilento250-festive-family-challenge-back-2013/

Thanks for reading, thanks to Road.cc for the opportunity to tell you about it and hope to see you virtually on the girodilento festive family 250 #girodilento250