- They don’t. End of story.
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.
My bad, I didn’t see the string on the side. I was going on a prior comment above that seemed to exclude TR and other non-virtual sources.
Yeah this comment above states that unless it has GPS data then it won’t count. Which TR doesn’t have GPS so based on that it wouldn’t.
EDIT: So I can’t say which is true but it seems like Strava and Rapha both have different criteria for what counts.
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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.
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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!
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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. 
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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!
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Forecast looks dry and chilly but sunny’ish days & my ride partner is up for it - bring it on!
Might even manage a little more than 500km this year with luck 
If one were to attempt the F500 on TR how would they calculate the distance covered? Or is the only way to also log through Zwift?
I’ve just set a kJ target for the days that I get forced inside.
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I was thinking time - as others have mentioned earlier on in this post, I don’t buy into Zwift miles etc. but based on my usual average of 28-30km/h when riding outside, it would take me in the region of 17-19 hours to complete the F500… so i’m thinking of targeting that over the 8 days.
Well the new UK Covid lockdown rules have pretty screwed this for me now. Living about 2 miles from the north & west edge of tier 4 it means I really only have 1 legal route out of here, and the thought of 500km on pretty much the same route day after day, probably solo, doesn’t fill me with excitement. A real shame given the best weather forecast for the 500 in probably a decade!
Looks like I’ll start my FTP block on the rollers 10 days earlier than planned… Good luck those that get out there and have a go!
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Pretty much the opposite for me - Tier 4 for tens of miles in every direction, and no family coming to stay means more time to ride. And hopefully nice quiet roads to ride on. If the weather’s nice and the roads are quiet I might even try and get the kids to do a Festive 100 with me!
Edit - did just occur to me that maybe cycling when hospitals are apparently at or near capacity isn’t the most responsible thing to do. Guess I can mitigate the risk by sticking to flat routes and maybe switching to Zwift if there are days when it’s very wet or icy.
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I’m just gutted I can’t even attempt it this year, on rehabilitation duties just now, this was the first year I had extra holidays that meant I could have tried it but my hip forces me out.
With the whole lockdown situation now I can’t see many people completing this outside in the uk and if you do please consider what you are doing
This is my first year even hearing about the Festive 500, let alone attempting it - I had no idea this was also the first year they are allowing virtual! Sad to hear they used to give actual patches out but are not doing that any more. It’s been cool to read up on the history.
That being said, I’m planning on doing it since I have off work 24 Dec - 4Jan and have literally no obligations since I don’t keep xmas. Living in Wisconsin (hilly, dark, snowy, icy), I don’t feel quite safe attempting all the miles outside, and I would be miserably alone for all of it… so most of my miles will probably be virtual.
Any tips for a Festive 500 newbie on how to successfully complete this? Other than workout/nutrition planning and my sheer stubborn-ness to get it done 
also incentivizing myself that I can get the tee and some new Rahpa gear if I successfully complete it.
I’ve done this for the last 2 years and had real feelings of satisfaction from completing the ‘challenge’ as riding in the UK at this time of year is not the easiest.
I’m disappointed there is no roundel, and also, whilst I respect that they are allowing virtual miles, I wish they had offered two separate challenges instead - the normal outdoor one, and a special indoor one. I think I’ll give it a pass this year.
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Excellent suggestion.
I looked at my ride history (work vs distance) and came up with 25 kJ per km. It’s the equivalent of 210 W for 30 km/h, but it factors in group rides, hills, starts/stops and gravel, and it’s a nice round number…
I’m looking forward to the 500 - and have set myself an extra challenge of completing 1000km off-road during the period (and now that I have written it down, I am committed!).
I’ve added this to my TR plan as a Stage Race and plan to do 100-150km per day (all before lunchtime). This will be my chance to see how I can back up day after day and test out my nutrition strategy for an event that will hopefully go ahead next year. Planning to commence with a 180km trip to get to my family for xmas, and then exploring the nearby coast and mountains on my gravel bike. With two little kids in the mix, it will mean a lot of early early mornings!
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