Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

@bananaskid . Interesting stats, thanks for sharing! How did you prepare for the race if you only rode 1400km since January?

I was also wondering how this is possible!

i am assuming the youngster has only slept 1400 mins since january too.

Very good, Clive, now if you would stop Hectoring riders, please.

Quite right, classical puns are the last thing they need having been to Helen back.

http://vsco.co/jamesrobertson/journal/transcontinental-race-no-4

James Robertson has the eye.

Getting in front of James's lens is incentive enough to push on if I'm able to enter again.

I would likely fall asleep doing that. Night

I reckon I'll be fine as long as I don't have aerobars.
Main attraction is that I'll be able to catch up with friends AKA go on the lash at 8am on Saturday

@eone @kjlem I'm not sure entirely, lots of ibuprofen from day 1 and gallons of voltarol. Also I think experience in these things counts for a lot.

Inspired by Frank I thought I'd do some things that went well and not so well:

Good:
-Dynamo is the way forward I had no worries at all about charging my things. I also had a Supernova front light which meant cycling at night was not a problem at all.
-Frame bag over a saddle bag - I could get everything out whilst cycling pretty much with not much difficulty repacking.
-Carried more water - went from 1.5 liters to 2.7 liters which was adequate for this year however it wasn't a particularly hot year
-No sleeping equipment - saved weight and there are enough hotels on the route
-Mobile phone data - last year I had to use wi-fi so it meant I spent a lot of time in restaurants/cafes

Things I’d do differently If I did it again:
-Consistent daily sleep - this year I did 4 all nighters and on the second day you end up cycling pretty slowly and you keep stopping. I figured out on average I slept for 4 hours so it would probably be best to get into a rhythm and try to sleep at a similar time everyday.
-Take a Presta valve converter
-Have a pump that can actually bring your tyres to pressure
-Foil blanket - there were a couple of times this year I was shaking uncontrollably after a cold descent
-Get rid of the down jacket - I only actually used it once and given mine wasn't water resistant I was reluctant to use it when it was raining
-Proper waterproof coat not just a windstopper.
-Small helment light - I had to try and hold my iPhone in my mouth when doing fiddly things at night
-Discs - this years climbing/descending destroyed my brakepads
-Electronic shifting
-Tubeless
-More caffeine pills - I only had enough for the first few days and I assumed I’d be able to buy them on the way so had to drink red bull which is foul.
-Proper route planning i.e. knowing how long each climb will take, what kind of hotels are in the next town etc.
-Waterproof electronics and have shorter cables
-Have an idea of where some decent bike shops are along the route.

cycling at night was not a problem at all.

Except when you ended up on some goat track at 5kph and had no light. I liked my backup light then. :)

I liked my bivvy - it gave me more comfy nap options in the latter stages.

Fuck Three and their lack of useful phone network.

I need to look into ConnectIQ - someone programmed their Garmin to show TOB % or something similar. I'm not sure I can be arsed but if it's in your face having moving time might encourage you to ride more.

I agree with the consistent sleep thing.

"Presta valve converter" ?

"Foil blanket" - take a light bivvy instead. Warmer, more useful.

I would lose the down jacket too but TABR is colder at altitude so might end up taking it again to the US.

Get yourself one of those 27g Petzl head torches.

Lots of people with Tubeless had issues. I ran normal tubes and did not have issues. Conclusion: Tubeless ain't all that.

All the decent bikes shops were in Switzerland, conveniently closed for their National Day. I saw one in France but that was before my arse had been turned to minced beef.

dude don't give away my game piece.
That is a private tip!

Can't imagine I'll ever be doing TCR but have you guys ever considered any of this kind of stuff for a bit of convenient nutrition when there's not much on offer: https://huel.com/

All seems a bit pseudosciencey but for something like the TCR it could work.

No, cos you'd have to carry it so not practical.

I did take 1.5kg of energy powders but made sure I used them up before I hit the Alps. After that you have to eat what you can find in the shops.

@bananaskid - good list

I found my foil blanket useful. Didn't use it for warmth but I spread it out and put all my other stuff on it so I didn't loose anything. They are so small and light that I would always take one.

Also down jacket was useful. Wore it a few times, mostly for sleeping but good to stop me getting cold at other times. Packed to nothing.

Doing without sleeping kit is the gamechanger in terms of luggage and would enable me to ditch the saddlepack. I did enjoy sleeping out, and it was useful as a backup when there were no hotels, or I couldn't find the one that I had booked! However, probably more efficient to go for hotels rather than bivvying. Certainly its possible in Europe.

Head torch was very useful. Not used one before but had a Cateye light bracket on helmet which allowed me to have a pretty useful light. Really handy for descending and seeing through corners, and spotting bivvy sites, as well as off-the-bike stuff.

Proper rain jacket - my Sportful one was shite. Got wet within the first few minutes (probably made worse by the reflective gilet which held water on the surface of it). How do we find such a thing...?

I'd stick with tubeless, despite my issues. It was my worst tubeless puncture in 18 months, so a freak incident that happened to happen on this ride. When I went to a tubed rear tyre, I got two punctures, which tubeless would have coped fine with (one was a snakebite and the other a small, sharp flint).

I guess I just don't get it with discs. Don't see the point. My v-brakes were good enough. Didn't need the spare blocks I took. Easy to take wheel out for punctures, etc. I don't see how disc brakes would get you to Turkey any quicker.

I don't see how disc brakes would get you to Turkey any quicker.

Later braking. Closer drafting of trucks*

*which is of course totally not race legal and I'm sure no one did it.

But it's another thing like Di2 - it just reduces fatigue in another body part by a little bit. Any tiny little thing you can do to reduce pain, reduce fatigue, minimise the things you're thinking about that are hurting will be better for you over such a long race.

How did you find the behind-the-arse water bottles? Any bottle ejections, especially with larger bottles? I've always thought it makes the most sense to go this way with a larger framebag but heard horror stories from testers and triathletes.

I'm surprised I only had 1 bottle ejection when I went over massive pothole in Kosovo at 1am. Unfortunately the bottles got crushed by a car behind but I limped on to Skopje where I bought new bottles. I would definitely use them again

Depends on the cages. I had no trouble with Xlab gorilla but my profile cages lost me a couple of bottles.

I read that as bottle 'injection'

@bananaskid Thanks! Definitely going to test the waters more fully.

@hippy I've heard really good things about the Gorillas but just can't justify £70 on bottle cages. Profile's version of the P-Cage are a fiver, much more my budget.

Fuck me, I didn't realise they were £70. I got mine with a Delta Adamo mount and I'm sure the whole setup was less than that.

Yeah, £50 WITH the Adamo mount:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/xlab-delta-225/rp-prod127525?gs=1&gclid=CjwKEAjwltC9BRDRvMfD2N66nlISJACq85918MJ729SK4tpacKqFLR9qmz3O-9OCsWevo0AYD-LTKBoCusLw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Part 1 of hippy's great balls of fire TCR race report

Ahh - I meant for the pair! £70 a pop would be ridiculous.

cough triathlon market cough

nice work hippy. looking forward to part deux

Yes, good stuff. Nice pictures!

The guy who came second in the first trans am did it on a liquid diet using Spiz (similar to huel I think). It's in the inspired to ride film if you're interested. I don't think it's a tactic which will catch on.