TransAm 2016 - www.transambikerace.com

Looking at the race flow, she's had a 2 hour stop, two 1 hour stops and a three hour stop. That's it.

I did something like that through New Mexico on Tour Divide, 750 miles in 4 days, off-road. I think I hit my limit. I was fucked.

I think the ancient Australian cycling legend Oppy used to sleep for something like 45min at a time but like five times a day.

Mike Patten tried to do 2003 RAAM with no sleep. He rode the first ~1200 miles before having a 'proper' 2hr sleep break but then I think fell apart/abandoned.

I takes 90-120min to go through a full REM cycle (which apparently is important) so that sleep pattern probably doesn't really work, not without a fuckload of speed to take when you are awake anyway ;)

What's the deal with Jerry Rush? He's been going for a month now according to the tracker, how many times is he planning to ride trans am?

He's a westbound ITTer, not part of the Grand Depart race

@hippy Probably.
I think Allegaert trains to stay awake and doen't sleep much.
"the Belgian was moving for all but nine hours and 38 minutes of his eight-day race"

I find that hard to believe. 1hr sleep per day, unsupported, with no time for resupply? That's not even including time to unpack a bivvy or mat. Unless he's on stimulants that's almost impossible.

Not one market queue he got caught in? Not one time he slept through an alarm or dozed off and crashed into a hedge?

Don't forget the Trans-Siberian is a stage race, and also redbull, so it can fuck off.

Hmm, yeah, seems incredible. Maybe the times are taken from trackleaders, and it doesn't even count the short stops as it doesn't record the location that often? So that time would only be the longer stops. But still.

@gabes The quote is about the TCR 2014.

I had a quick look at trackleaders http://trackleaders.com/transconrace14i.php?name=Kristof_Allegaert

Looks like 6 proper stops, all around 4h and a few <1h stops a day, I assume for food. Either way it's pretty disciplined.

she's barley slept though.

In fields? :)

Well that seems more human.

There's some hill called White Bird, Sarah and Steffen have just passed it and others just coming to it.

Sleep dep is very individual. I'm lucky that I need relatively little sleep if push comes to shove, whereas a friend can't do anything more than a 300km Audax as he just can't push through the weariness.

I was fine on PBP and LEL with no more than 60-90mins a night for 4/5 nights and maybe a 30 minute nap during the day. Those were only 200 miles/day though and on nice paved roads with controls serving food etc. Sleeping locations were a mixture of cots in a room of 300 farting people, on a chair with head slumped on a table, in a garden shed, on a stone floor with a blanket, or wrapped up in an emergency blanket in a church porch. I can sleep on icy gravel if necessary.

Never gone more than 4 or 5 nights but both long rides I stayed up the whole of the remaining day too:-

• midday finish for PBP having ridden through the last night, got to sleep at 2am (once the airport terminal had quietened down)
  
• 5am-ish finish for LEL having ridden through the last night, went to sleep at 11pm
  
  

I'd be interested (and equally scared) to find my limits on this but a 14-day TCR type trip (I'm not fast enough to be at the pointy end) just isn't compatible with family life.

Also changes a lot atleast for me. During the first night of pbp I had to take a nap, or I had fallen asleep while riding. But then I only slept for about two or three hours during the whole pbp. Some days just can't fight it and then a week ago, at the fleche and the ride back home, I was awake for about 45 hours straight, mostly riding, no problems. Keeping that up for the next day would have been interesting.

That's it - the longest thing I've done is PBP, which I just think of as two long days. I can go into sleep dep as it's short enough. For faster riders it can be just one long day. But this stuff is different; you've got to find something that you can sustain for the longer term.

Yeah, everyone is different, I need very little sleep generally. On Tour Divide, I was often last asleep of the group I was riding with most of the time, and always the first up, and hassling the others to get going. I'm sure if I rode alone, I would have been faster. Next time!

Lee Fancourt took a wrong turn, he's backtracking now to the turn for the White Bird climb.

Looks like he cut a corner too.

http://trackleaders.com/transam16i.php?name=Steffen_Streich

He took that shortcut too.

Guess these two guys are desperate to catch Sarah, but they've just cut a corner. DQ IMO.

Sarah and Lael both took the correct route, Lee and Steffen did not.

BOOM.

Yes old trackleaders are very useful!

According to a friend who's done the route before, it's a legal, and ugly alternate. Damn it.