Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

This just in from Alex Wright

https://twitter.com/wrightalex/status/761184440697688065

That's lovely, but 150 Euro

I wonder if you could run it on the brake disc, it'd be going much more slowly than the wheel rim but would keep it out of the way and it's very unusual for a brake disc to go out of true.

With a 250mm rotor it might even generate enough leccy.

Kristoff almost at CP4. Animal.

Hippy overcoming has tattered gooch and making the most of his glutes on the flats and catching up to Mueltherthaler and Sallnow.

Skinny is now just 30km behind Ultan who seems to have flagged a bit in the last day or so?

Kristoff is the width of Bosnia & Herzegovina in front of everyone else

Giving Ultan 36h then catching him is amazing (if he manages it).

Ultan would have rested up at some stage during that 36 hr period - nevertheless extremely impressive particularly as many would have scratched when they realised that a win was unlikely #truegrit

Someone was asking about the finish a few pages back so I looked it up in the race manual.

The finish line is in Çanakkale, on the eastern side if the Dardanelles. This essentially forces riders into taking a ferry at some point. Of course, it would be possible to reach Çanakkale overland, however this would involve routing through Istanbul and around the sea of Marmara adding over 400km to the journey (as well as Istanbul traffic to boot!).

Assuming that no one is ludicrous enough to go the long way around, there are several ferry options:

Eceabat -> Çanakkale
Kilitbahir -> Çanakkale
Gelibou -> Lapseki (then ride to Çanakkale)

This introduces some interesting planning considerations for the riders since the race manual says that:

Ferries from Eceabat run around every 30 minutes from 06:00 until 00:00 and then at 02:00 and 04:00 and takes 25 minutes. Ferries from Kilitbahir run around every 30 minutes and take 15 minutes.

No ferry information is provided for the Gelibou -> Lapseki however I'm sure riders will have checked it out.

The race manual says:

For the first time we will have a ferry for the last meters of the race. The finish protocol is that riders arriving at the finish line together will be given the same time and their order of arrival will be recoded depending on the order of their arrival at the ferry port of departure. This will be validated by the tracker so once again take care that your tracker is on and functional to the end. In the event that tracking is not active on a rider then they may prove their arrival at the Ferry port by collecting a receipt at the port of departure. For example there are several ATM machines next to the ferry terminal in Eceabat where one can be obtained.
If a rider cannot prove their arrival time at the ferry port then they will be assumed to be the last to arrive for that sailing. Any rider who fails to navigate from the finish line to the Saat Kelusi with the other riders on that sailing will not be placed ahead of them in rankings regardless of ferry port arrival.

The actual finish line is at the Saat Kulesi monument in Çanakkale which appears to be just a few hundred metres from the ferry port so we can probably expect riders on the same ferry to roll in together (although I wonder how they define "riders arriving at the finish line together" :-) ). However there are some interesting possibilities if riders are close at the finish but opt for deferent ferry options.

They could have had a 10km TT section after the ferries, to squeeze the hell out of riders that happen to be on the same ferry (riders closer than 30min to each other) and allow them to play mind games on the ferry.. That would have been mean

On second thoughts I also like the fact that a 30min nothing in a race like this

I think they'll presume that if you're within line of sight of another rider it will count as arriving together. Otherwise there would be a risk of people attempting silly sprint finishes through a cobbled and pedestrian heavy area.

Arguably Skinny was stopped for even more than 36hours for his infection. He stopped for c.36 hours in Clermont-Ferrand then rode for a day (maybe 12 hours) before another full nights rest and recuperation (c.10hrs) just before the swiss border. So far as I can tell it was only after that that he decided to put the hammer down and race for top 10.

Counterfactuals of what the race situation would have been like had skinny not been ill are always going to be a bit of a fudge, especially since the added rest could conceivably mean he is fresher than other riders like Kristof who hasn't yet stopped for longer than about 5hrs.

Even so I do think it's interesting to wonder 'what might have been'... especially since skinny was only 31.5hrs behind Kristof at CP3!!

Add to which, @skinny was probably riding below par in the day before he stopperd to rest.

Fair point.
Not over till its over and Kristof still has a way to go yet 1k?
I hope Lenhard makes a similar recovery and goes on a similar plucky charge (all be it to finish behind Caros/skinny/Hippy)

The Control car is basically making a movie on Kristof ascent, right now.

Poor guy, he didn't meet any other rider in the past 3000km, he's probably very bored

This Jurgen loves the path less trodden. After taking Stu's southern route to CP3 he's now gone some funny looking northern way which only Schaefer and Tannenberger have followed. What gives?

Skinny, Ultan and Nelson Trees could all see each other depending on who stops next

I'm just wondering which part of Darren's body will get its own twitter account next.

I loved the Alps, but this looks pretty stunning too!

wow!

Stunning

Nothing to pick between @skinny (red) and Kristof (blue)...

Data from the virtual brevet on FRR

Skinny was also the fastest rider (from the current top 20) from CP2 to the top of the Furka pass (3:50, compared to 5:12 for Geoffroy Dussault in 2nd), although that probably relates to his short stop in CP2.

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Montenegro is nice.

Beautiful!

@darrensknees to join up with @darrensarse in the chorus of complaints?

what's this then, @hippy switched phone language settings to Croatian?

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