Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

That's really an excellent interview. Favourite bits:

I won’t take a phone next year.

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There were three of them, and the one in charge was a really keen cyclist — he was totally cool! He showed me photos on his phone of him on his bike, and he was asking loads of questions about the race. They ended up giving me a lift to a bike shop, maybe 8 miles away. It was 4.30am and it opened at 9am, so the police suggested I could sleep there and I’d be fine, and they left it at that. When the shop opened, the owner was great. He threw my bike in a stand, he stripped it down and sorted it while I sat there. He was a racer himself, and he’s a friend of [ultra-distance racer] Steffan Streich, and another friend of his was an audax rider. He called up his friend, his friend came round, and it was like a party in the shop! They were taking photos of me, chatting away, it was great. They sent me on my way with loads of tubes and a puncture repair kit

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I started the race purposefully overweight. Yesterday I went into the supermarket and tried to carry a basket of food. I had to hold it with two hands, and put it down for a rest — I’d lost that much muscle off my upper body. My body won’t eat muscle off my legs, because it needs them, so it starts eating my upper body. I used to, before the race, do a lot of strength training exercises. All of that’s gone, off my shoulders, and my chest and back. I’ve lost a huge amount of muscle.

Also:

Peter Sagan would argue that point with you! But I can see why people would think that. If you look into it, and you really know pro racing, it’s not boring. There’s so much there, there’s so much going on, though I can understand why people might think it’s a bit more sterile nowadays. It’s that question of what you can connect to. In the ‘90s, the ‘80s, you could maybe connect to it more, these people looked like you, they were a bit more like you, and the races were a bit more normal, but now it’s… well, it’s amazing, I think racing nowadays is great. I think Sky have brought so much to cycling. They’ve made everyone step their game up. Because of that, racing’s gone to another level in the past few years.

Personally, I think it's boring because people are wearing helmets and sunglasses. :)

JH: Next year’s Transcontinental! Win it, and then come back and defend it. That’s the next two years. Maybe three, maybe four. As long as it takes!

Pffft, I bet you're already planning something else to go dramatically wrong. :)