Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

That was a little tougher than I expected. My body really told me to scratch at CP3 but it's hard to quit a bike race when you're riding for people fighting cancer. The tracker was playing up but I was blown away to hit CP1 just 40 minutes behind @hippy in 15th place. CP2 in 19th place and then I found that 24% climb out of Bolzano and blew my achilles. My race was never going to recover from that and it was largely going backwards from there. I decided to stay in it and concentrate on fund-raising, which worked well. Currently over £11k raised for Cancer Research, so it was worth every moment of pain.

That wind in Croatia was a bitch. 215kph. I've never experienced anything quite like it. At one point a whole tree flew past me. I saw four riders and a biker blown clean off the road. It took a day and a night to get clear of it into Bosnia, but just as I was clear I picked up a chest infection that I still haven't shaken. I was coughing blood when I woke up in Bosnia. Two short days to try and heal didn't really do anything at all. I was getting bored and depressed watching my position fall backwards so I decided it wasn't going to heal and I should just crack on anyway.

The Balkans weren't bad. Montenegro was lumpy as fuck, which was a challenge with two blown achilles, but damn it was pretty. I was learning how to 'lock' my ankles and ride around the injuries. It was only the chest infection that was seriously bothering me now. That stopped me riding much after dark as the air was really damp - arms, glasses, helmet, all glistened with moisture riding along in 17°C.

I was flying through Macedonia and thinking about doing the last 1,000km in one hit, but then ended up on the R1102 at 2:30am and it took the wind out of my sails a bit. 20km of gravel bullshit in the dark. Stopped just before the Greek border for a couple of hours and then rode through the next day and night in Greece to Alexandroupouli, where I charged my phone and realised there were 10 riders within 50km, with 180km to go. Unfortunately those 50km were all lumpy and into a massive headwind, so I could only catch a couple.

80km to go and my right achilles twanged properly. I tried it again and I felt another part go. In fairness, I'd pushed my luck already so I decided to just nurse it home and only put power through one leg. I had 20km lead over the guys behind, but they still came romping past me within a couple of hours. That was pretty soul-destroying. Then another pair came past about 30 minutes later and I hit a new low. Then some dick pushed me off the road and onto an exit ramp at 50kph with his car. Luckily the tap was fairly gentle and I was able to stay up. 40km still to go though. The longest 40km I've ever ridden.

With 8km to go I could see the Dardanelles and was scouting for ferries. The four guys who'd passed me were pairs so I wasn't officially racing them, but official means nothing. Losing those places hurt a lot and I thought of a way to get them back. Their trackers showed them still waiting in Eceabat for the ferry. I had a clear gap behind me and nothing to lose, so I smashed it to Kilitbahir as fast as my one leg would carry me. The ferry was about to leave, so the Disney ending was still possible, but the guy in the booth wouldn't take a card and I'd not picked up any Turkish Lira. He could see how much that crushed me and let me through for free. I rode onto the ramp as it was moving away - 3-4 seconds later and it wouldn't have been possible.

The phone was dead and my route files ended this side of the crossing, so I didn't actually know where the clock tower was. I ran upstairs to plug my phone in and waited, and waited, and waited. It finally pinged to life just as the ferry was docking. I spent 30 seconds booting Google and figuring out where it was, hobbled down the steps to the bike and sprinted off through the crowds. I saw one of the pairs and rode around them. They'd presumably stopped 'racing' once they reached the ferry so I don't think they had any idea I was coming. I screeched into the finish seconds behind the Dutch pair.

The volunteer at the finish confirmed I'd beaten the second pair but as they reached the ferry together we'd all get the same finishing time. I asked him about the finishing order and he said "well, as you're a solo rider and they're a pair it doesn't really matter". No, it really does! He did'nt know what it'd taken to gain that spot back. He recorded that I arrived between the two pairs.

What an event. If I've not done any permanent damage to my achilles then I think I'll be back. I quite like that my personal race was so tough but I'd really like to be competitive in another edition and I think the experience has been very useful. I'm pretty new here (only been riding two years) but it was cool to put some faces to names and I'm looking forward to catching up with everybody soon. Hopefully somewhere with cushions.