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The #girodilento250 festive family challenge is back for 2013!

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 and need to spend quality time with between December 24th and 31st.

I had always liked the idea of the Festive 500 that Rapha and Strava hold each winter 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 period is also when I want to spend more time hanging out with the people that are most important to me, so I’ve always viewed the Rapha challenge with a certain degree of horror in watching a lot of people actively choose to spend a huge amount of time out on their bikes at Christmas rather than with their families, friends and loved ones.

So the that’s the basis of the idea really – let’s have a challenge for normal people with busy lives, loved ones and commitments but who’d still hope to get out and get a ride or three in (other commitments allowing).

IMG_2198The #girodilento250 – A challenge but a less extreme one.

With that in mind, I’m keeping it simple to hopefully make it easy for you to join in should you wish to.

So here are the “rules”/guidelines as I see them (please feel free to suggest any improvements in the comments:

1)       Any riding goal up 250km is fine – you choose an amount that would be a good goal for you. 250km might be too far if you’ve got lots on, so choose a smaller amount if you’d like. Talk it through at home if it helps and choose the days you can get out for a few hours to ride.

2)       To join in – you can leave a comment on this post 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.

3)       A simple way to log your rides is to join Strava and use the hashtag #girodilento250 for each of your rides between December 24th and the 31st

4)       If you do use Strava, feel free to join the girodilento club to log your rides:  http://www.strava.com/clubs/girodilento-cycling – it’ll make it a bit simpler and more members makes for a more fun community.You’ll be able to see how other people are getting on too. You can also use the Strava club to share your target in the comments.

5)       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 great 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 it’s great if we can do this again.

6)       There are no prizes for completion other than the warm glow of satisfaction of hitting your goal (whether it’s 100km or the full 250km) 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 Facebook page or via Twitter (@girodilento).

IMG_1217If you like this idea – please jump in and have a go and please also share it with other people who ride – the more involved, the merrier …. And more festive.

Last year, I found it very difficult to do 250km and this year my own personal is probably going to be less but I’ll certainly be doing the challenge at some level or another and am looking forward to it.

Thanks for reading and hope to see you virtually on the girodilento festive family 250 #girodilento250