Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

This might be one of my favourite comments I've ever seen on the forum.

Cycling there, no way. So many more qualified cyclists then me broken long before Montenegro.

Flights, tempted. I just looked. 1 week return in October is about £120 with a bike...

Already used all my family brownie points up this year with a planned trip bikepacking Quantocks>Exmoor>Darmoor.

Next year...

Cycled Macedonia to Croatia last year, most countries were better than montenegro. Bosnia and Albania were my favourites

Your pictures were magnificent.

Lenhard is back after a 2 day injury break!

You can avoid the Alps..

Some confusing routes at the moment:

1. Allegaert - that's quite a northern detour, he must have a super flattish rout all the way south from wherever he's aiming.

2. Sandholt - Is he just skipping he CP or he missed the turn? don't really see the point in his route

Also, I wonder if anyone will be brave to take the gravel between Avtovac and Pluzine, seems quite nice

I got lost riding up Alp d'huez.

If we get separated. My riding buds make a point of remembering silly side roads an idiot might mistakenly take.

My shite sense of direction is only overshadowed by my shite sense of distance. So if you ever find yourself in Norway on a ride With me, and I say 'Nah, its not that far, we'll ride it*'. Pack a sleeping bag.

Keeps me fit though.

(*again apols Dammit, TW2, Crumbs)

Hard to tell without looking in detail but the route via Nis > Sofia > Plovdiv > Edirne... seems to loop around the mountains without adding ridiculous extra distance, all other routes look pretty lumpy.

Allegaert's pin just jumped up north by pretty much the entirety of Kosovo for me. I reckon he's having tracker problems - looked to be heading directly to the finish before I refreshed.

Sandholt just wanted to get to a town, I bet he's gonna backtrack north-east after sleep/food

The history shows a him heading north with all the points looking reasonable but there is a spurious one way down south.

That makes sense, 'cos the other side of the border from where he is there don't seem to be many roads, let alone ones going in the right direction!

He may also be banking on the Bulgaria - Turkey border crossing being quicker and easier compared to Greece - Turkey.

My shite sense of direction is only overshadowed by my shite sense of distance

Which are but specks of dust on the side of the mountain that is your lack of sense of elevation...

It's all flat from here on in

Flatish.

I reckon Sandholt was just looking for a bed. It's only a c.7km detour each way and he looks to be stopped now. Also look at his movement tracker on track leaders... his sleep pattern (or lack thereof) is astounding!

Skinny looks to be following Kristof's Sarajevo route into CP4 and several others have opted to follow Skinny's more northerly route through Bosnia.

As has been said, I think Kristof will go Nis - Sofia - Edirne. This has at least a couple of advantages. First, it should be flatter. I remember this being discussed both when people were planning this year's route and also last year, the hills of northern Greece, Macedonia etc. are apparently brutal. I wonder how many others will avoid them. Second, I seem to remember that there was some discussion about difficulties/risks associated with trying to cross the border into Kosovo. I'm sure it's not impossible, but I'm sure people on here were posting about difficulties with borders not always being open. Kristof's route allows him to skirt Kosovo all together.

Is it possible to view the trackleaders routes for TCR03?

Also, while we're on Kristof, isn't it compulsory for all riders to follow all of the Parcours?

Maybe a GPS error but ##Cough## Trsa ##Cough## ?

Is it possible to view the trackleaders routes for TCR03?

http://trackleaders.com/transconrace15

You can get rider route history also.

From seeing all the folk who are utterly soaked... I'm seriously considering running mudguards at next year's TCR.

Awesome...

So yeah, quite a few people routed the round the north of Kosovo last time.

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Hmmm. Wonder if the road was closed? Seems a particularly odd place to take a detour.

Trsa

Good point! He should go back!

I'd guess Mike will penalise him some time instead?

Not sure what to make of the end of that section of parcour, are you supposed to go up one road and down the other? Or you can ascend either one you want...?

Kristoff's went this way '13 & '14

http://trackleaders.com/transconrace13
http://trackleaders.com/transconrace14

Theres talk on FB of alternate parcours for CP4 that was given out at the riders brief, I guess KA took one of these...