Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

Nine riders still on the road.

Four solos. One former pair now solo and two pairs.

Pair #213 Rebecca Harrison and Alistair McGregor finished yesterday afternoon.

Rose McGovern #136, Now leads the rest of the field. When I last reported, she had 194 km to go . A solid day of riding has brought her close to the Turkish border and she now has only 80km to go. 80 km is the distance from Islington to Saffron Waldon or the ride from Islington to Ware and back. She has been riding for quite a while already today and I think that we can expect her to finish in daylight. She set out to race and was in with the bunch through most of the Alps. From her social media postings, the ride has been harder than she imagined but she has kept going and cheerfully so. Really impressive ride. Sadly she is the only rider left on the road who appears to be tweeting or using Instagram but I may be wrong.

Simeon Jurukov #113 is close on her heels. 115 km to go. Again, he should finish today.

Then there is a gap to the next riders, all of whom look set to be on the road for a few more days.

Laurent Carlier (a former pair but now solo) #205. Yesterday when I reported he had 514 km to go. Now he is down to 400 km and in Macedonia halfway from Skopje to the Greek border. At that rate he should finish at the weekend.

Pierluigi Talamona #126 . Yesterday he had 587 km to go. This morning, 500km,. Still firmly in Kosovo.

Daniel Nicolas Munoz and his pair Guillermo Nicolas Munoz #209. Yesterday they had 663 km to go; today 578km. Just crossed the border into Kosovo.

Cheng-Hui Hseih #92 The last of the solo riders. He reached and then rested at CP4 yesterday and is now moving again with 675 km to go . Still firmly in Montenegro.

Finally, and possibly moving a little quicker now are the #228 pair of Mattia Biffi and Alberto Varni. Yesterday they had 228km to go to CP4. Now they are only 90km away. Hopefully they will reach it today. They could yet give Cheng-Hui a race.

The one I find particularly interesting is electronic shifting. Isn't this just something more to go wrong and be difficult to fix?

The other thought is about solid tyres. There are some that are apparently pretty good. Might these be worth considering in a few years when issues with them have been ironed out?

Min (Cheng-Hui Hseih) is a girl. She's riding a B.Twin. She's broke, knackered, but determined.

Main benefit IMHO is giving you multiple shifting positions: I had STIs, aerobar ends and one on my bar top by the stem (for the right side only). But it also saves you from stiff front shifts which can become a pain over time.

Main issue is that it needs regular charging, but you can do it on the go (from AA batteries if need be, or battery pack, dynamo, etc) or overnight, so not a big issue.

Total failure is pretty rare. Of course if it stops working you've got to HTFU, select your preferred gear and make the best of it! I had to singlespeed for an hour in France on a cold morning while I waited for it to warm up so I could set mine up to recharge.

I know nothing about solid tyres (other than that they don't sound very comfortable). But most people don't get many punctures as, on the whole, the roads are pretty good. It's only when people end up on off-road adventures that the puncture counts increase.

I got 3 punctures and considered myself unlucky. I think @hippy didn't get any, despite going exploring a few rough trails.

Thanks for the info. Broke financially or physically?

The other thought is about solid tyres. There are some that are apparently pretty good. Might these be worth considering in a few years when issues with them have been ironed out?

They've been ironing out the issues with solid tyres since John Boyd Dunlop was a child.

Thanks for that. Interesting about electronic gears.

The reason why solid tyres would interest me is that they would first reduce what one has to carry (not just on the TCR but also a trip to the shops) as well as, possibly more importantly, giving some added confidence in tackling crap road conditions.

I understand that those currently available are comfortable (you can get them in different hardnesses to the equivalent of different pressures on normal tyres.) The only problem apparently is cornering. This is sufficient to stop me using them but if this were overcome, I could see them as very attractive.

It's a bit of a chore writing them out and I'm just using my shambolic twitter feed to remember most of it but I'll try.

I took a few. There's a load of bad on-the-bike selfies that will be scrubbed in order to save humanity :)

Rose McGovern is in Turkey

http://www.teamhammerfest.com/hammerblog/spiz-on-the-trans-am

He was busted eating hamburgers in the latter stages :)

I don't think it's practical for foreign riders either, you'd have to get there early and post your chosen drink mix to all the post offices along the way otherwise it'd be silly ££ sending it from UK. You then have to hope you get to them at the right times to pick up your powder and then you have to carry it.

I'll stick with service station "food".

Di2 is solid. It's Shimano. I will probably never go back to cabled bikes.

Solid tyres have been around years and never been any good - heavy and slow.

regular charging

I only remember throwing mine on the charger once, there might've been a brief second attempt in a hotel later in the race. I'm running it down now because I've never actually experienced what happens when it does go flat...

Di2 is great for travel too - much quicker to unplug a di2 cable and remove a derailler or quickly remove aerobars for packing.

I would love to have a smaller charger (or a bigger battery) but that's a nice to have - not many people race their bikes for 4000k!

It definitely removes hand fatigue which I have had riding/racing cabled bikes during 24hrs or audax. This was the first time I've used road Di2 and the first time I've used hydraulic road discs and once I'd set them up they were both lovely and unless there's a specific reason I can't use them I will likely have them on my bikes going forward.

Ha. This.

I remember using them in Oz 30 years ago. They were good for skidding and great for avoiding flats due to "puncture weed" but I'd never race on them.

The front derailleur stops working. It'll be stuck in teh little ring.
A while later the rear stops working.

That's interesting, the same thing happens when my legs stop working...

Solid tyres have been around years and never been any good - heavy and slow.

Indeed, Physics says the last place you want extra weight on a wheel is at the radius. 200g extra in the hub (e.g. a dynohub) is barely noticeable. Stick that 200g in the tyres and it'll feel horribly sluggish.

Tubeless seems like the best compromise of the two extremes.

On Di2...

It definitely removes hand fatigue which I have had riding/racing cabled bikes during 24hrs or audax.

There's another way of reducing that hand fatigue (but it does add a lot to leg fatigue, especially in hilly terrain).

But I wonder if the auto-shift stuff will be production enough for someone to try it TCR#5 next year. Certainly looks interesting.

Still not convinced by tubeless.

Fixed for that parcours would've been stupid. I'm sure someone will do it but they won't be competitive. I was barely able to turn 34x32 over the Giau after hammering the southern detour. I'd at least want a flip flop hub and then you may as well use gears. Di2 ftw!

Auto-shift system for me would be "put in granny ring, leave it there for three days".

The front derailleur stops working. It'll be stuck in teh little ring.

A while later the rear stops working.

I've noticed that my 1*11 Di2 bike runs the battery down significantly more slowly than 2*11 versions, I was down to 3/4 capacity at 800 km.

Yeah front D seems to use a lot more battery than rear. I assume the motor needs more energy.

Yeah, much bigger shifts, innit

Is there any web site where I can see the various bikes used for the transcontinental ?

From 2015 edition, guess he might have done the same this year and will upload at some point... https://www.flickr.com/photos/mkpaa/sets/72157655872912539

On Instagram, someone photographed a huge number. Check under the hashtag #TCRNo4

More specifically @patman159