Because nothing says Christmas like riding 500km around a fast food drive-through to complete a festive cycling challenge…
Matthew Fairbrother — an enduro racer who in 2022 bikepacked 1,500km from one event in Scotland to another in Slovenia and loves a long-distance challenge — has ticked off another big day out, this time completing the Festive 500 in one ride at home in New Zealand… by riding laps of a McDonald’s drive-through…
“Physically it’s manageable, mentally it’s relentless,” he told his followers on Instagram afterwards.
In the end he did 503km although some people have pointed out something appears to have gone wrong with the elevation of the activity, unless you really can rack up 2,000m of climbing via drive-through speed bumps. The GPS is miraculously clean given the length and monotony of riding 500km around the same small loop.
“My life is usually built around goals, purpose, and process,” Fairbrother explained. “Big projects with a thousand moving parts; logistics, terrain, weather, risk, timelines and always needing to think five steps ahead.
“Every now and then it’s nice to strip all of that back and do something purely for the sake of it. With no meaning, no destination to reach. Just turning up and letting my stubbornness do the work. What makes a challenge like this weirdly appealing is the simplicity. Physically it’s manageable, mentally it’s relentless. The same loop, the same sights and a million different thoughts, keeping the peace becomes the real challenge.
“Somewhere within the stupidity is a controlled space to test patience, self-talk, boredom, and resilience. Skills I’ll need when the stakes actually matter and the consequences are real.”
In total, Matthew was on the bike for just over 20 hours, the elapsed time including breaks three minutes shy of an entire 24 hours, even at a 24.6km/h average speed. Bonkers.