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

Skinny is through the pretty scary Tunnel and on the decent to CP4.

just want to shout fuck yeah to @skinny @hippy and the rest of our parish who are out there taming that distant black top

keep rolling well and rolling safe ls & gs

Has @skinny almost beaten the car to CP4?

This! Truly amazing what you're all doing out there.

Productivity in workplaces across the country must have taken quite a hit as we all follow your dots.

Another bonus of having the QR the wrong way round is you can use the lever to push the rear derailleur cable housing inwards towards centreline of the frame, for the aeros (and for the noobs not on di2 / etap)

U wot?

Beer is much cheaper in Europe than London. Do the right thing.

This x 1000000 squared

I think we should be expecting a lot of video footage of @skinny riding the TCR this year, that's the only reason why I think the car is either pacing/racing skinny up and down that climb.

I do dat.

Mother of God...

Wonder what thinking the riders have done about finishing tactics. I suppose those going for a win would have calculated potential advantages of losing a night's sleep against the slower pace/poorer decision making from sleep deprivation. i.e. If Bjorn can stay within 100km of skinny until the last day might he try and skip a sleep to close the gap?

@skinny has the car along side him now as he crests the mountain and begins the short descent to CP4. Looking forward to the video of that one.

Here hoping for a live stream on FB or something

@skinny now has a lengthy descent and then relative flatness whereare Bijorn has a long hard climb. In a couple of hours @skinny 's distance adavantage should grow substantially. He could easily be 100km ahead with only 850km to ride.

Happy for @skinny ATM. After all the shit that's happened in the last few years with this race. His reaction was to work harder and train more efficiently. great attitude.

Under 1000k to go lad. Bring it home. I'll join the q of people to buy you a shandy when you get back.

His whole approach to the race has developed so much. He is still an amazing cyclist as he was then. Now, however, he is a knowledgeable, clever cyclist with a great amount of experience.

So pleased that he is doing so well. Just hoping that the next two days pass without misfortune.

Probably a lack of bandwidth on top of that mountain

^ very much what you said

@skinny I am looking for a coach #jussaying

^ Me too. My 9 year old daughters were looking over my shoulder last night while I was dot watching and started asking loads of questions. I got quite passionate explaining Skinnys situation to them and why I really want him to win. I think I'm following his efforts with more anticipation than any pro cyclist in any televised race ever.

Re: Ian To's routing

Someone mentioned on the Facebook group that he looked like he was making it up as he went along - something to do with a bizarre looking route between Austria and CP3. His wife, who I think is also updating his own FB page, argued that he had planned his route meticulously, knew it off by heart, and had discussed it so much that she too knew all the details.

Given where he is now considering how strange some of his decisions seem, maybe it is working for him.

I'm sure he put a lot of thought into his routing but his assumptions seem to have been different from those used by most others and he has made different decisions as a result. This might be based on climbing vs TT strength - he's obviously a really strong climber. However, some of them, in particular his route towards CP3 when he turned north via Austria were clearly longer than eveyone else's, and not less hilly than some. His routing after CP3 also seemed to be hillier for little distance saving. I think he is where he is in the race in spite of, not because of, his route selection. I find myself wishing he was going the same way as others so that he could make it a bit closer. But will be interesting to hear his views on routes after the race.

All of this

The climb to CP 4 seems to have taken 0.4 off of Skinny's average (moving speed), now down to 27.0 kmph.

Yep great to see Skinny learn and develop, I remember him saying he wouldn't do it again after 2015 and feeling morose, then seeing that in fact he was going for it again. Managed a great performance in 2016 battling illness and then hopefully this year his training, sleep regiment and form have all come together. It will be super awesome to see him take the victory.

Doesn't look to be much line-of-sight to the satellites in the valley over the other side of the climb. 30 minutes since Skinny's last update, wouldn't be surprised if his next tracker update is after he's controlled and he's half way down the mountain.

Wonder what thinking the riders have done about finishing tactics. I suppose those going for a win would have calculated potential advantages of losing a night's sleep against the slower pace/poorer decision making from sleep deprivation. i.e. If Bjorn can stay within 100km of skinny until the last day might he try and skip a sleep to close the gap?

I'd expect them to go into greater sleep deficit on the run in - you don't need / want to finish the race fresh. I would expect both Bjorn and Skinny to get a decent sleep tonight, but we might see Bjorn in particular riding through the following night.

Skinny is far enough ahead that he can have at least 3 hours with out losing his lead, + whatever Bjorn has + another hour or two for being faster. So he will probably sleep