Rider : Rik Van Steenbergen

Rik was a monster of 1950′s cycling who raced practically non stop and in the process collected a staggering amount of victories. His greatest victories on the road involved five monuments as well as tying the World Championship victory count of three with Alfredo Binda, notice that name keep popping up? In total he claimed 270 victories during road races and time trials but he was a huge track and criterium rider which means that his total victories could be nearer to 1000. While one for the classics the mountains were never in his favour but he did manage to finish 2nd in the 51′ Giro. Rik was also the first of the Belgian riders who would dominate post war cycling.

Rapha Festive 500

Tomorrow the 23rd of December is the first day of the 2011 Rapha Festive 500. The 500 is a challenge to fight the urge to be slack over Christmas and ride instead. The riding is mainly aimed at the northern hemisphere who are in the middle of winter but that doesn’t stop me partaking in the challenge. Laugh all you want but since I started riding I’ve never done 500km in a week. In preperation for the week I mocked up a training program which hopefully will lead me to success. Here is the training program which I hope will give you some inspiration.

Friday: Devil’s Elbow – 70km
Saturday: Mordialloc Return 60km
Sunday: Day off
Monday: Kinglake Return 110km
Tuesday: Blackrock RE 45km
Wednesday: 1/20 from Montrose 80km
Thursday: Park Orchards Loop 50km
Friday: Day Off
Saturday : Two Bays 115km

That totals up to 530km 30km over the required 500km. A bit of variety included which should make for an awesome week of riding. If anybody fancies to join me on one of these ventures either tweet me or send me an email and we can have twice the fun. I’ll blog every day about the great fun I’m having whether just a picture of a bit of a write-up we’ll see how I go.

Happy Thursday!