A patch for everyone, who had to suffer under a Rapha Festive 500 participant

If you are a Strava member and opened the app sometime around Christmas, you will have tripped over a challenge called Rapha Festive 500 (unless you have mastered the challenge yourself already) and will have asked yourself: Who does something like that, who rides 500 kilometers between Christmas Eve (24.12. 0:01 am) and New Years Eve (31.12. 11:59 pm) in order to receive a virtual and a real-life (yeah, Rapha sends you one) patch in the end?

Well, I did (last year) and thousands of other cyclists try to manage the task – some even making it a Festive 1000, like Nils from Goodtimesroll or riding the 500 kilometers in one go. Careless of how you do it, you spend a lot of time on your bike, during the days that are normally reserved for family activities. Your family is the one to be let out in the cold (metaphorically) and the one that suffers silently (or maybe not silently) with the lunatics that ride their bikes for 500 kilometers in order to get a patch.

Last year I made my wife a present for all deprivation she had to suffer from during the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve: I gave her a patch that I had seen on Instagram. Alright, she wasn’t as happy about the present as I was about the fact that there is such a present at all. Maybe you have a partner who will be a lot happier about the patch, even if he or she hasn’t ridden the 500 kilometers. Or you are on of those people who had to suffer from somebody participating in the Festive 500 and now you want to reward yourself.

Do it, here is the link to where you can buy the patch: http://lousyroundel.bigcartel.com/product/festivus-2016-roundel