Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

What worked / didn't work, lessons for next time, etc

Worked well

• Bike overall - got position and set-up mostly right
  
• Hope lights. Bright enough and built to last anything. One of mine flew off at full speed when I hit an expansion joint on the last descent in Montenegro. It really needed a bunny hop but I was on the aerobars. It landed about 30 yards down the road from where it flew off. I stopped and went back for it. Had a little scratch on the case but worked fine.
  
• OSMAnd on my phone as back-up navigation. This was excellent and I had to rely on it a couple of times when the Garmin was in a sulk.
  
• Tubeless tyres. I'd use them again even though I had to bin one as I got the worst puncture I've ever had on tubeless just 2 hours into the ride. Limped as far as Switzerland mostly with just 30psi in the rear tyre and wasted a couple of hours trying to fix before I replaced it. But then got 2 punctures in my new tubed tyre that the tubeless would have prevented.
  
• Dura Ace hubs with minimal spokes (18/24). I loved riding these wheels and they are still perfectly true.
  
• Mudguards. I'm in a tiny minority on this, and I only had rain twice, but they kept me dry when it would have been a pain to have got completely wet (Croatia below) and kept the transmission a lot cleaner
  
• 2 x 1 litre bottles - this was a good amount of water carrying capacity. When I saw @bananaskid putting 5 bottles on his bike I did wonder if I was missing something, but I was only in danger of thirst once - on the first night in France.
  
• luggage - loads of trade-offs here but I was broadly happy with mine. 2nd bar bag at the front for food worked well. Least happy with the Apidura saddle pack as a pain to access. Would look into using a rack pack as alternative (although minor weight penalty and bike doesn't handle as well with one)
  
• sleeping kit. Bivvy bag + silk liner + half-length foam pad and down jacket. This lot was warm enough every time I needed it, and wasn't too bulky or heavy.
  
• route. I had two plans to improve on what most people did - going slightly further west in france where I knew it was much flatter by the Loire / Allier (did the route on my honeymoon!) and going into Italy to dodge the mountains in Switzerland. Both worked well and gained me time. I missed the one with the local border crossing before Durmitor, and I didn't consider Kristoff's routes further East (towards Zagreb then via Bulgaria) so don't know if they would have made sense. Didn't check my routes thoroughly enough so ended up having to backtrack off 3 bridleways in France and take 20km of pain by the railway in Macedonia.
  
• Energy drinks - took 1.5kg of energy drinks with me. Made finding food in the first couple of days in France / Switzerland less of a challenge than it would otherwise have been. Would try to carry more another time.
  
  

Could be better

• Battery charging - I didn't want to use a dynamo but I would try one if I did something this length again. Needing to recharge my battery packs every 4 days created extra stress. Also losing a wire that I needed to recharge DI2 and phone from AA batteries reduced my options. Had to buy 2 more battery packs to make up for it.
  
• Booking.com. I booked a guest house in Croatia when it was the thunderstorm. Got there at 12:30am. Could I find it- could I fuck. No answer when I phoned them. Looked for 45 mins then gave up and found bus shelter. I found it far better to just grab a hotel when passing than try and book ahead.
  
• Mobile phone. Got cut off by the tossers at 3 for using my phone too much and had loads of hassle getting connection reinstated. Would take a back-up sim (or two) in future and look into the small print of things like roaming limits beforehand.
  
• Food. Was really sick of cream-filled croissants. Might try to research alternative food options a bit more beforehand.