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

@Samuli climbing up the rankings - super impressive!

Jeez, wish the top 4 would bloody well stop for the night so I can head to bed. Cannot believe they're still going!

CP4 seems to be about 120km and 3000m up from Sebeș where 75 is right now.. and maybe stopped. Likely stopped.

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Bjorn is catching up...

Yeh Bjorn appears to of had a more productive evening than me at the pub

Nelson and Rory both just over took Ian, expect Geoffrey will in the next hour as well. Not sure if he is slowing or just awful route selection, looking forward to Frank's analysis in the morning.

100km difference even if he catches him tonight that's fours extra kip for skinny.

I am pretty safe in thought skinny has this calculated to the ninth!

Was less than 20km just now when me and Hoke commented, think one of the trackers must of been playing up

Sounds like Skinny's road (E81) was a nightmare. "Worst road I've ever ridden. Would never ride again, especially at night. So stressful." In fact, the race organisers have put out an alert to avoid that road.

Too late for Bjorn who must be on it right now, poor bastard. However, looks like Ian To and Jonas are on the right track to avoid it, and Geoffrey and Mathias have plenty of time to divert to that route without much of a distance penalty.

Looks like it'll have a bit more climbing though...

What was the issue with the E81? Too much traffic/high speeds/bad driving?

Looks horrible on street view - no hard shoulder and lots of trucks, although there is one guy on a bike braving it https://goo.gl/maps/gGJfcXT73qs

Bjorne have cut the lead to 15km, granted skinny has stopped a hour earlier than he has.

Look forward to seeing skinny arriving at CP4 for his early breaky!

James on the move again at 6:30am local time, Bjorn still stopped has woken up too. Jonas and Ian also moving.

Parcours: https://goo.gl/maps/XTZ58Jih3AE2

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Just my two cents worth on route selection for the TCR. Lets assume you ride two 25km long roads, one flat, one hilly, on the flat road we can ride at say 25km/h, so that takes one hour. Let's assume the hilly course rises for half its distance and falls for the other half. On the uphill you average 12.5km/h, and on the downhill 50km/h, so it takes one hour to reach the top, and fifteen minutes to descend. That's 1h:15m all up, 25% longer in time
Even if we ride up the hill at say 15km/h, that's 50mins, and lets assume a descent at 60km/h that's 12m :30s, so a total of 62m:30s. So 2m:30 (4.2%) extra. Is my maths right? Flat roads always look faster to me. Plus I didn't take into account that you travel a longer linear distance on the flat, km for km.

Looks horrible on street view - no hard shoulder and lots of trucks, although there is one guy on a bike braving it https://goo.gl/maps/gGJfcXT73qs

Looks like a busy UK A-road. Not fun.
I'm not necessarily a fan of hard shoulders as they create an expectation that you should be on them and that motor vehicles can steam past. In Australia I was happier on the roads that didn't have them. Exception is if there are lots of blind bends.
But really it depends on the attitude of the drivers, which you can't assess without being there. So, if Skinny says its horrible, I'm sure it is.

weather reports say that austria had it's warmest night on record last night
temps reaching 45c in the balkans during the current heatwave

hope they are all getting enough fluids

come on skinny

I get what you mean about hard shoulders, I always feel it's nice to have an option to bail onto.

It's clearly now Skinny's to lose. He has consolidated his lead, rode faster than Bjorn and covered 65km more in the day.
The challenge from Jonas didn't materialise: he was slower than Skinny yesterday. He closed the gap on Bjorn, but only by 300 metres! Hence he fell back vs Skinny.
Ian To managed to overhaul Matthias, despite going national park bagging. After his long sleep the night before it looks like he has ridden through.
It's not Skinny's recommended approach but others have done it with success. He'll feel really shit at some point today but it might work for him. He's only 20km behind Jonas and rode faster yesterday despite more climbing. I don't think he'll catch him though as the lack of sleep will make him slow down, and he keeps picking strange routes.
Looks like Matthias has also ridden through.

Overall I don't expect there to be many changes in order at the top from now on, most likely the gaps will just widen.

cheers for your insights and really helpful summaries dude

Skinny one turning from hitting the bottom of the run up to CP4 it looks like.

The route at the top looks interesting over that escarpment. Hadn't realised the two sides weren't linked with road. Some cleats in for a hard time.

Under 1000km to go for Skinny.

12hr,24hr,DQ? If you come across a bridge down you can't just fly over it, you have to reroute. He should've.

Looks like there is a tunnel.

They are linked--by this tunnel:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6022305,24.6141606,3a,60y,154.88h,87.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seDNteWdFbUh-QvSAd13Y2w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I can't see any signs prohibiting bikes, but whether anyone wants to use it is another question.

Edit: Just had a closer look at the route map and realised that the tunnel is actually part of the required route.