Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

When will Josh Ibbett finish I wonder? He's nearly 300 kilometres ahead of his nearest rival, so the win looks certain unless he has a major physical collapse.

He's got 433 kms left to Istanbul so, in theory, could finish sometime late tomorrow.

Good prediction!

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But very early for the party.

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Lest people forget, @Tp88 is also riding this. Also struggling with neck issues, he's hoping to get to Croatia before scratching.

Last time I looked Ult seemed to be taking a different route to the rest of the chasing pack. I wondered if he might be able to move up to 2nd.

Josh Ibbett about to cross the border into Turkey. He is still a country ahead but this time the country is Bulgaria.

Two riders taking a southerly route. Looks like they will hug the Greek coast.

Of the first three ferry people, our fixed chum and Gareth Baines are both at CP3 but Lee Pearce, up to now the strongest of the three, is lagging behind slightly.

And of the others, Leo Tong is close to Zagreb and @banana_skid is just past Sarajevo. Brilliant riding.

Great effort @skinny, showing undoubted talent. I hope you manage to fix the neck issue, sort the funding and balance training, working and studying. If it's a problem to balance it maybe best focus on a single thing in the first year, such as the 24h TT.

Anyway, amazing effort. Well done.

In the absence of proper sponsors, I'm sure you could get some support through crowd funding from your LFGSS fan club.

emily apparently scratched :(
http://trackleaders.com/transconrace15i.php?name=7___Emily_Chappell

Shows how hard a race this really is on peoples bodies, hope leo holds it together

Emily Chappell appears to have given up.
I hope she is in enough health to reward herself with a bit of tourism.

Who's @banana_skid then?

Yeah, she's officially scratched herself. She was suffering chest pains and was in hospital. Apparently not life-threatening or anything but obviously enough to make her check herself in so it's a bit of a worry.

She's on twitter, btw: https://twitter.com/emilychappell

Full list of scratches (Facebooklink)

6 Juliana Buhring
7 Emily Chappell
8 Andreas Wittkemper
9 Gunther Desmedt
15 Bernd Paul
21 Sarah Searle
24 Chris White
26 Hans-Jürgen Schmitz-Rech
31 Martin Mcconnell
41 Rian Cope
42 Zbynek Simcik
48 David Hart
54 Rod Aitchison
74 Jihad Azmuddin
75 James Hayden
82 Thomas Searby
86 Doug Bridgens
88 Christian Ekdahl
96 Henry Rijkenberg
102 Paul Alinejad
103 Matthew Collins
104 Andrew Brogan
109 Jens Frederickx
132 Roberto Buonamano
139 Serguei Stassiouk
150 Frank Biersteker
170 Phillip Perkins
170 Elena Solomides
175 Stewart Campbell
175 David Winton
177 Roeland Cappon
177 Pieter Cappon
179 Russell Stout
179 Fraser Waters
182 Nick Williamson
184 Peter Tannenberger
184 Christian Schaefer
189 Jonathan Shergold
WILDAndreas Behrens

@skinny shame things didn't quite go to plan but it was a fantastic and inspirational effort, been exciting following the dots and you've shown a great attitude towards the race and unsupported ultra racing in general!

Few photos from one of the volunteers at the start and then the Ventoux control: https://www.flickr.com/photos/12617230@N03/sets/72157656689190701

Josh riding on the O-3 motorway - I have sweaty palms - go safe chap!

Motorway that allows bikes? That's fine then. waits for arrest to be made

https://youtu.be/8K61RQfZcUk?t=16m45s

@16:45 u can see that motorway

Not much traffic, plenty of shoulder. Lovely bit of road.

.

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Riders 124 & 125 in Kosovo - I though Serbian customs weren't letting people into Serbia if coming via Kosovo.

Would avoid at the best of times.
That's were the organisers need to set up a 300k gravel section.