There is something special about the Tour de France. While I enjoy watching and following racing throughout the year, like so many others I get most excited for the Tour.
The challenge is that despite being only a few years older than Valverde and having been recently promoted to “B” on Zwiftpower, I have begun to accept that I should not be waiting on a call from Brailsford or Vaughters. Alas, as I sit on the trainer rewatching past stages, I find myself wishing that I could be more a part of it.
I recently learned about a virtual Tour de France competition at work (Google) giving awards to the folks that bike the farthest, the fastest, and the highest during the Tour. While I was thrilled to have a race of my own, a quick glimpse at my colleagues’ Strava accounts made it clear that I would not be in contention for a jersey.
It occurred to me then that if I wasn’t going to be in contention to win, I wanted to set myself a difficult personal challenge so I would stay engaged. So was born the TDF1000.
The challenge is simple: during the Tour de France (June 26th to July 18th) ride 1000 miles and have fun! That is it! 1000 miles (1609 km) in 23 days.
This works out to just over 43 miles per day. Personally, I plan to try for 40 miles per day on weekdays and 100-120 miles on the weekends. (We’ll see if I can earn myself a rest day). Do it all on Zwift, do it all outside, or mix it up.
Join In the Fun
I will be hosting daily Zwift Meetups and would love to find folks in other timezones to host their own TDF1000 Meetups.
If you are interested:
- Add [TDF1000] to your Zwift Name so others will know that they should lend you a wheel if they see you around.
- Join the TDF1000 Facebook Group to find Meetups and commiserate with other folks attempting the challenge.
- Have fun and enjoy the Tour!
Hope to see you out there. I can’t wait to hit 1000 miles while flying down the Champs-Elysees in just a few weeks!
Questions or Comments
Post below!
I’m doing something comparable this time, i’ve chosen 21 routes that roughly cover 1/3 of the distance and elevation of each stage and i will ride that while watching the Tour. For example tomorrow (saturday) i will ride 3 laps of the Knickerbocker route which will be 67.5km in length and 1030m in elevation (stage 1 of the Tour is 187km and 2630m elevation).
Each stage on it’s own is relatively easy but i never did so many kilometres day after day. Will be interesting to see if i can still walk by week 3 😁
This sounds awesome, good luck!! I would love to see your list if you are willing to share!
Sure thing!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pquKilbXI9Xevl6qDQ7-Dq0tTgR9WEh-NRZglRJl6Yk/edit#gid=0
It’s an old doc, originally i intended to do half the distance but i had to scale back after doing a test ride, hence the wrong values.
Thank you and good luck to you aswell 🙂
Can you make this a Strava Challenge Badge?
I had looked into how I might do this, I haven’t completely figured it out, but I will look some more and let you know.
A Strava challenge/badge would be awesome as my hubby is not on FB
Nice idea and article Craig 🙂 It’ll be a different beast this year with the T de G going global and from one week to three. The standing desk.will be getting a lot of use! 🙂
Good luck and maybe see you on the virtual road!
With nice weather outside, and double vaxxed, no thanks..