Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

You fuckers lapped it up.

Anyway, skin grows back, carbon doesn't.

Agreed that carbon looks crap.

I wonder if those carbon blobs provide any advantage over 'normal' framebags.

From seeing inside it, the tail blob had loads more useable, and accessible, space than a tail bag. It was like the boot on a small car - just open it up and pile stuff in. Also they should be more waterproof. My Apidura certainly wasn't - in fact none of my bags were.

For the frame blob, presumably the aeroz straight on are better as that carbon surface should be smoother and slipperier than a bag. But it might be worse in a cross wind, basically like a Trimble frame, which was meant to be very fast, as long as the yaw angle was no more than 5 degrees.

She has indeed stopped in Kavala and the Pair are gaining fast.
She's been stopped for 90 minutes already but it could be just for food....

Hadn't seen her other FB site till that pic was posted on the transcon site, very cool https://www.facebook.com/MinkaHsieh/

I hit two clips and my bag unfurls so it's not a faff. I was also stuffing my bag with wet kit every couple of hours so it being waterproof was largely irrelevant.
As for aerodynamics - it's bigger frontal area than a bag might count against its slippery surface but without testing, who knows?
My bag was sexier to start with but ended up a bit limp and sad so not sure about style points.

Samuli has some pics up: https://www.flickr.com/photos/90453902@N06/sets/72157669674584333

http://hobbyathletes.com/blog/view/michaels-transcontinental-race-episode-01

I hit two clips and my bag unfurls so it's not a faff. I was also stuffing my bag with wet kit every couple of hours so it being waterproof was largely irrelevant.

Might not have been an issue for you but many people do find the tailbags a pain to access. Mine was as it was slightly too small for what needed to go in there.
Also mine had dry kit. I used loads of poplyrhene bags to keep things like down gilet dry - would be better to have something fully waterproof.

Basically, it looks weird but it might have some usability advantages.

Despite its carboness it's less robust than fabric in the event of a spill. One highpoint stone would shatter with the full weight of the bike concentrated on it.

That being said conventional saddlebags become like a squeezed tooth paste tube if you just remove a couple of items, which you generally do.

They ideally need to be loosened off, restuffed then retightened each time, otherwise they pendulum like the bull's proverbials. Mine had the annoying habit of sitting over to one side where I would catch it with the back of my thigh every pedal stroke.

I adapted to the swinging whilst en dansant to the point that now it feels strange and unsettling not having that weight at the back when I'm out of the saddle.

For waterproof try drybags made of Event, so you can squeeze all the air out.

Any news on the last three finishers? Will min hold of the last two guys?

So Min was joined last night by Alberto Varni and Mattia Biffi. The photo shows enormous relief. It is good that she has people close by for this last stage.

It is not clear whether she is risking disqulafication and riding with them or whether she is out on the road alone a little ahead of them. I think that latter as she appears to have started around 9 am local and the other two around 20 minutes later.

What is also unclear to me is how far she has to go. Trackleaders gives her around 175km to go but this appears to be a direct line and would require her to ride over the sea. FreeRoute has it as 449 km but this seems rather too far.

She will finish, at latest, by tomorrow night, I am confident. She could finish before then. Exciting times tinged with sadness that this great event is coming to a conclusion.

I learnt from (one of Mike's videos perhaps?) that it's better to have more space than you need because if you're at the very limit of packing capacity or if everything has to go in your bag 'just so' to make it fit, it's a pain in the arse to do quickly. Ergo, have excess carrying capacity.

The stuff I needed to keep dry, like my down jacket and bivvy, were in drybags in the saddle bag. The stuff around it just stayed wet.

Which bag did you have? My Revelate has never bothered me save for its saggy appearance later on in the race. It still didn't move around enough that I noticed it.

You can probably still follow Min's progress as she heads towards Taiwan au velo, provided she keeps the tracker after Turkey.

Lovely Tweet from Darren Frank:

"A cyclist gave me & my broken achilles abuse for holding them up on my Boris bike. Apparently I'm a "fucking fair weather cyclist". I LOL'd."

It will take her at least until November to comlete that ride.

For an easier return route, one could head north to join the Danube, follow its course up river until the Rhine Main Danube Canal and then the Main and Rhine before heading off to Belgium around Cologne. This would be a relatively flat route.

Apidura. I was using it too much though, I think they are best used as secondary storage for stuff you might need very occasionally rather than the shit you need on a daily basis i.e. like sleeping kit.
My lack of aero bars severely limited my storage capacity upfront, in future I will have a bar bag of some description just to keep rain spray at bay.

Darren's back to earth with a bump.

Lovely Tweet from Darren Frank:

"A cyclist gave me & my broken achilles abuse for holding them up on my Boris bike. Apparently I'm a "fucking fair weather cyclist". I LOL'd."

Wow, he's doing it again? And doing an econodog? Amazing.

Yeah, I saw that video too, but I didn't want to get another saddlebag!

Main prob I had was that two things I ended up using a lot, my pump and my legwarmers, had to go in my saddlebag as no room elsewhere.
I'd thought mine (Apidura) might be waterproof as it had been fine in showers, so the plastic bags were just extra insurance. The Croatian thunderstorm would have penetrated anything though!

Hope Min does keep the tracker- I suppose it depends whether its her own or not. Will mean many more months of dot watching before cold turkey