Transcontinental Race No. 5 - TCR5 - #TCRN05 - 2017

Come on @skinny keep goin mate 👍👌👌

Ivan just added a couple of extra layers to the frrt map, so now easier to toggle mens and women's races if you want to seperate them

Places 5 to 10 are changing every couple of hours, still a good race going on there

Care to elaborate?

Here's a quick look at the average daily speeds of the front guys.

Conclusions:

1. They're all fast!
   
2. Skinny faster than Bjorn every day.
   
3. Jonas has been faster than Skinny on every day apart from Monday
   
4. Ian To has been fastest of all on 2 of the 3 days he tracked properly for.
   
   

Speed not the only factor, time off the bike and route also important, but being faster helps to win races.
Some day to day variation depending on when they hit the alps, etc, but they've not been that far apart and there's not been that much difference in amount of climbing or total miles done, so it's a reasonable indicator.

Ian has done nearly a third less climbing than the others hasn't be? Must factor in to his being fastest

One interesting thing about that data is how Bijorn's speed has dropped whereas the others are more consistent.

Ian has done nearly a third less climbing than the others hasn't be?

His tracker wasn't working for about a third of the time! Days 2/3

Is Bjorn taking the Slancik short cut?

Good point!

urgh...I need to go to sleep but instead am waiting to see what turning these two take and if bjorn is going to cut through the hills into Hungary

Amazing effort, well done! As others have said, understandable and your priorities are what counts!

Massive respect.

@gillies Kudos, wise decision. An excellent achievement in any case.

@hippy We're all beering for you fella!

@gillies you've done an amazing job, no one can take that away from you! You should be so proud of yourself, I know we are! Kudos and Rep!

@ gillies Rep & respect ! An amazing thing and the right thing, well done!

@hippy the conqueror of all continents!!! Keep up the good work! You're an inspiration to us all!

Had a funny moment on the phone after telling wife that I was scratching. I said I'd been worried about traffic for days but hadn't said anything to avoid making her worry. She said she'd been doing the same, and didn't want to stress me out further! She's some woman.

Thanks to the forumengers for your kind words. Means a lot.

Hope you got some joyful memories in the bag as well.

@samuli, the 'frankenbike' owner has progressed up through the field from around 40th to 16th in a couple of days, some going. Hippy also in top 20, pit-stopping at a hotel by the sounds of it with his squeaky chain.

Said bike: https://www.instagram.com/p/BW-GKSQFoOT/

Also: Come on @hippy

Hippy is up and complaining. All is well with the world.

Skinny has stretched his lead to 18km.

This is going to be a very distracted day.

How much sleep - if any - did skinny and Bjorn get last night?

Predictions for today:

1. it will be easier to get more work done without the distractions of @skinny's catch yesterday as he consolidates his lead
   
2. Bjorn to go a bit slower as he sees victory slip away and Jonas Goy to make up a bit of time on him
   
3. Ian To to have a fast / long day on the back of a night in a hotel, including re-passing Matthias Dalgas, who leapfrogged him overnight
   
4. Hippy to leave Austria, possibly tweeting some regrets about not having done the flatter option via Slovenia
   
5. The leaders will all get to the Transfargasan tonight - let's see if the weather is ok for them to ride through and if they get attacked by bears and wolves on the way.
   

Chris Davies is up and riding and should hit CP1 today.