Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

#guymartin

Ultan [59] seems to be preparing to move off after replacing his 'pringled' front wheel, tracker showing some movement.

Gun it Ultan!

Why are the tracker icons for 64 and 111 bouncing and showing no distance to the finish?

From a tweet about Josh nearing the finish:-

"
His dot is bouncing - means he's tripped the final geo-fence on the tracker.
"

Which is another reason that trackleaders is a bit shit, it often gets things completely and utterly wrong and thinks that those riders have got near the finish.

An old clubmate, no.19 has done this to his wheel:

128,111,64,11 all at it now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXoMtgcHlkg

How?

Can't believe the spread on te field...

Great effort skinny, we were routing for you up in Leeds for the win. Do you think you'll return next year with more upper body strength/conditioning work or do you think once is enough?

Crash I believe, he's a bit stuck as no bike shops nearby, so getting it as true as he can and carrying on.

HA!

He'll be back.

Rider #17 - Alexandre Bourgeonnier - is only 173k from the end. Should be in later today.

This means that the gap between first and second will be almost a day or 10%. That is an astonishing margin; absolutely astonishing..

All is right with the world again #tcr2015

A photo posted by Ultan Coyle (@ultc) on Aug 4, 2015 at 3:36am PDT

Yay!

Gareth Baines and Stephane Ouaja (our fixed friend) are within sight of each other. Lee Pearce, the other of the three ferry people, is 20km behind despite being the front runner through Italy. About 625km to cover.

Joseph Todd is beond the last CP and has 800km to go.

Leo Tong got to CP3 just moments after it closed. Looks like he is resting before continuing. His is an heroic performance (as are all the others).

Nah next year I'll be back stronger.

I actually did neck strengthening exercises in my core work. I think the issue is beyond strength, I'm going to get some serious physio work done.

I realised I'm built for these races and had the best time of my life.

I'll be back with a lot of unfinished business!

And thanks!!

Ah James, so happy to hear that you'll be back next year. Totally believe that you have the potential to win and I think you must feel the same!? Totally fucking smashed it mate.

It really shows the gulf doesn't it. Gotta think Ultan and Skinny would have competed for the win without their respected problems. Lets hope all 3 are at it next year (but Skinny more).

I googled Ultan's name to check the spelling and out of intrest clicked images. Flicking through I found this. did laugh, slightly scared.

For some reason I can hear an enraged "MOOOOOO!" when I look at that picture.

Looking lean...

@GrahamLaming Completely unrelated but do you know who was waving the giant Zim flag on the summits of this year's TdF?

No sorry, I don't.

Interesting that several riders are using the Bulgarian road Number 8.

Quoth the race manual:-

"
Road Warnings

1. The number 8 road from Sofia through Plovdiv to Edirne. This road is at times narrow with no shoulder and very fast moving traffic including trucks which will attempt to overtake despite your presence. Of all the roads that Transcontinentalists in 2013 travelled on, this was reported as the worst. Avoid it like the plague.
   "
   

Ultan up into 4th. 80km (as the crow flies) behind 3rd as of 3.30pm today. Always good to have something to attack (assuming he's paying any attention to the trackers).

Robert Goldie (12) was tracking alongside Ultan for a while, but then took a wrong turn down the 86. He's just doubled back, but that's given Ultan some breathing space - really hoping he can catch Tomas (124) and take a podium spot.