Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

Yeah 1.5 hours each way

Fucking ouch.

He didn't do the last part of the "required" route...

What ferry do you mean? I'm missing what the issue was?

The Lepetane - Kamenari Ferry. He probably shouldn't have taken that so he was sent back at the checkpoint to do the long way round the lake.

Fu. That's just crazy.

if you go onto his page and follow his route you can see where he takes a short ferry over the mouth of the bay and he then doubled back on him self and went back around that had us guessing for a bit

Zoom in on his position, he took a ferry from Kamenari to Lepetane and then cycled on to Kotor and up the climb to the CP.

Instead of carrying on he turned around, retraced to the ferry, took the ferry back to Kamenari and then started on the road round to Kotor (the road goes nowhere else).

The logical deduction is that the ferry wasn't cleared in advance and so he had to go back to where he was before he used it.

Now he's got to climb up to CP3 again and continue on the rest of the required route bit.

for what it was I would have allowed it, but if the rules state prior authorisation that could open the floor to a whole load of route contesting

Thanks.
Yeah. There will be rules somewhere saying ferries must be authorised and I guess that wasn't.

Ouch indeed, the checkpoint is at 900m ASL.

He's still sooo far out ahead. I don't know how he can do this, ride so much on so little sleep.

He must be absolutely trashed.

23000 km of training this year (according to his blog) might be part of it. But yeah, i don't really get it either how anyone can work with so little amount of sleep.

Just think how annoyed he must be, when you get tired you get irritable, to then be told your have to do an extra 60+ miles round trip would be so annoying..

Ishmael (racer I met during the 24hr TTs) is in at #14.

One of my mates is friends with Ishmael and says "he was sheltering in the doorway of a cafe yesterday, from the pouring rain. The cafe owner is a cycling fanatic, recognised Ishmael from the TCR website, and insisted on buying him lunch"

Good god, that must have been the most expensive lunch EVER. Man probably needed to eat his entire cafe, including all the tables and chairs.

With no sleep debt in advance you can get by on surprisingly little.

Not quite the same distances (but not too shabby):-

London-Edinburgh-London in 2009 I had ~10 hours sleep during the 5 days (115h was my elapsed time, 70 hours riding time for the 1426km). I finished at ~3am or so and didn't go to sleep until 10pm that night. 45 hours off the bike is a lot of faffing, especially for only 10h sleep.

Paris-Brest-Paris in 2011 I had ~10 hours sleep during the 4 days (87h53m was my elapsed time, 55h riding time I think for the 1228km). Started the ride at 8pm so I'd been up since 7am on the first day. Finished at midday-ish and got a few hours sleep that night (on the floor in CDG airport). Flight at 7am, lift home from Heathrow from a friend, shower and then an hour long nap in the bath (joy) and then out the door to get myself to the Isle of Wight by train and ferry. I was up until ~2am when I got there but slept very well that night.

Managed to do much less faffing on PBP, only 22h dedicated to resting, eating, pissing, etc. (I even had a shower after the first 1160km).

https://twitter.com/AllegaertK/status/499946297953357824

Still seems to have humor left

For a race we only get snapshot of that was quite intense lol. @bothwell the trans am had people driving out to meet riders just to give them aid and show support (julia's blog for eaxmple)

always refer to trans am but that was first race I truly followed

With no sleep debt in advance you can get by on surprisingly little.

How little? It's gonna be rider-dependent isn't it? sigh

No. Sleep. Til. Brooklyn!

#Rep

How little? It's gonna be rider-dependent isn't it? sigh

Indeed, that's why I stated it vaguely.

I cope very well with sleep deprivation but I've got friends I've ridden 300km Audaxes with who just can't make the jump to 400km (or longer) as they just fall apart when with no sleep in a 24 hour period.

I can still often be heard saying things like "I'm so tired I've been up since 6am" but that's generally when my sleep was interrupted and/or I'm carrying a big sleep debt.

I found I handled 24hrs better after each one but there were still points in a 24 where I'm thinking "shit, I could do with a lie down". I'm wondering how to go longer without needing a kip.

On a 100km, 200km or 300km ride I often hit a low point at ~60% or so. Lasts for an hour or two.

On multi-day rides (600km and beyond) it happens daily often around the time the sun goes down.

When I'd only done a few Audaxes I gave in to it once and packed on a ride. The next time I felt the same I was far enough away from a train station that I had to ride at least an hour to get there (and it was on the route of the ride) that I felt much better by the time I got there so I carried on. I made that mental note that if I wanted to give up on a ride I had to do a couple more hours and then make my mind up again. Or, if at a control, eat before making up mind.

I doubt I'd have the mental strength for something like the Transcontinental though. Those are some lonely miles...

Do you train sleep debt too? Do they?
I wonder...

I wonder if any of them get up after a few hours sleep for a ride, then maybe go back to bed. Or just train to be the strongest they can and let sleep debt be what it is when it is.

It's a whole new scope in training technique.

they will train to do back to back audax distance rides and in doing so only get minimal sleep