I email Strava about what counts for the Rapha Festive 500. This is the reply.
Indoor virtual activities are categorized as those that include GPS, distance, elevation, and time data from a simulated route. Strava’s own challenges will continue to count only outdoor run and ride activities towards challenge goals.
This should include Zwift activities, however, if GPS data is not included in activity files, those activities will not count toward this challenge.
So, would think if the indoor app has GPS data it will work.
Well, I changed my mind about attempting to do this outside. While the challenge is still well away, last few days we’ve had rain, melting snow, and freezing overnight, which has turned everything into a skating rink. Instead, I’ll add a bit to my regular programming and hit 500km inside.
In previous years I have just unchecked the indoor cycling box on Strava for indoor rides on other platforms than Zwift and TR to count in the 500.
As on this TR custom ride. I have found on some Strava challenges if you don’t have it visible to everyone it doesn’t count (until you change it once you notice that is).
The 500 just sounds miserable to me. I’d have to ride the trainer for 2+ hours a day on average. If I lived in a warmer climate and had the freedom to do a few 75+ mile rides it would be different.
I totally understand where you’re coming from on this - I’ve slogged through some seriously cold and wet winter days to do this in the past and not enjoyed it at all!
This year I decided it would be weather dependant and right now the 10 day forecast suggests 6-7c daytime temps and mostly dry days up to the 28th, so if thats the case I’ll head outside for a nice block of endurance miles and take a break from the rollers for a while!
Indeed, despite the “hardman” feeling anything less than a terrible condition ride outside is not in the sprit of the origin, doing this inside has it’s own and understandably different level of difficulty. Good to see Rapha essentially being clear about the open options either way.
If TR miles count, then surely you can set a custom workout (or choose a relatively flat one) and dial the power back to 50W, then spin in the 53x11. Wouldn’t that make Strava think you’re doing like 50 mph?
According to the screenshot above from @mrpbennett TR miles will count? Also seems that the Strava monthly distance challenges now include every kind of virtual ride, and even manual entries where they used to be outdoor only - assume they changed it at some point this year with all the covid restrictions on outdoor riding and I never noticed.
Personally wouldn’t include TR miles as they seem even less “real” than Zwift miles. But guess the point of this is that it’s a personal challenge anyway. If you really wanted to cheat then there are plenty of ways of doing so (take a file of a long ride, load it into Notepad, search and replace the dates, load it into Strava - had a Garmin date bug a few years ago that meant I got very familiar with having to do this!) but you’re really only cheating yourself. So if they’re going to open up virtual rides then maybe just open them all up and let people police themselves however they see fit.
sorry my bad for highlighting the text on the page lol
For me. If they don’t count, so what (I never win anything on these poxy challenges anyways) for me…it’s more of a personal challenge on discipline on the turbo and to get in extra base miles. I will be using 52 and mid of the cassette, and just pedal in erg mode.
I’m still on the fence on this. I agree with you, provided that the speeds are reasonably close to what you’d ride outside. But when I see that it’s easy to knock out a few hours of Zwift riding at a 40+ kph average, that’s just silly, makes collecting the 500km a joke, and cheapens the whole thing all around. Of course the conditions won’t be the same for everyone outside, some will ride in the rain at 2C, some will ride in shorts in the sun, but (to me anyway) it should be a similar effort indoor vs outdoor in the big picture. Riding for hours on end indoors on a trainer is tough, no argument, but the results should still be comparable to outside.
I’ve done group rides outside on smooth, flat, quiet roads where I’ve averaged 40kph for 3 hours on ~200W. I’ve done flattish closed road races at 45kph where there are people averaging ~200W if they’re not putting their noses in the wind. Zwift speeds are a pretty accurate reflection of the speeds you can do outside with lots of people to draft off, nice roads, no winds, no stop signs, no traffic, no braking into corners, etc. It’s just that the vast majority of us don’t get to ride in conditions like that outside, especially in December!
I think it all comes down to personality traits and personal preferences, and there isn’t a right or wrong answer for this, it’s just individual. For me personally, the challenge is whether I can do 500km, not whether we can do 500km. I don’t think it says anywhere that it has to be an individual effort, this is just my own mindset, which is also why I usually like to ride alone, or with 2-3 people at most. On a local 97km flattish loop I can average 36.7kph alone, at a 285W average, and I feel like I earned those km. Last New Years I wanted to do a century on Zwift, so I did 161km and averaged 196W and 32.4kph, which is also realistic to me, but also a solo effort. Again, that’s just me… I feel like I don’t “earn” my mileage if I sit in a pack and draft, and only put in a fraction of the effort I’d put in alone, and that’s probably a character flaw on my side, something I see in plenty of other things I do, too.
In the end, as long as everyone feels challenged in some way, it’s all good.
Fully agree it’s a personal choice! I’ll be setting my bar a bit lower than you, aiming to do most or all of it outside but if there’s an opportunity to have company for some of those miles I’ll take it. There’s absolutely zero chance of any 40kph 200W average rides on UK roads in December, especially with covid limiting groups to 6 riders. And if I end up on Zwift for some of it, as is likely, I shall shamelessly pick the TT bike and some flat courses. But will hopefully avoid stooping to the depths of seeking out mass participation double draft events!