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

slvlss sknny: https://twitter.com/apidura/status/893421056215658496

Judging by all the pics+videos of skinny so far, he will get to the finish looking fresh as fuck anyway

Yep great to see him 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.

'Old head on young shoulders' is what I have kept thinking. He's a good rider but that alone would not have won it; his mental approach has been better than that of his rivals. I think the basis of what he has done was to analyse Kristof and copy, but he has done more than that and probably become even stronger.
One thing that is particularly impressive is that he has always been very open about what he is doing, sharing all his power data, telling people what the best race strategy is, etc. He comes across as extremely confident, based on the belief that he has what it takes to win.

^this too, Frank! Great analysis there

Conquering the parcours of CP4, #TCRNo5cap075 @JamesMarkHayden. #TCRNo5 #DoYouEvenTransfagarasan? #Apidura [Photos by @KristianPletten] pic.twitter.com/NrZBfPMir2

— APIDURA (@apidura) August 4, 2017

He comes across as extremely confident

Skinny is one of the most confident people I've ever met, and he backs it up with meticulous preparation and execution. Sounds simple but he'll only ever be beaten by a better rider as he'll have nailed down every single element that he can control.

TCR twitter seems to report that CP4 area is a signal black hole so we might not get much until after he's left

From IG:

#TCRNo5cap075 James Hayden arrives at the bar at the @apidura CP4 at 12:23 04 August 2017 after 6 days 14 hours 23 minutes on the road.

This is getting frustrating. A static dot lying some way behind the point that we know he has reached is not condusive to calm Friday lunchtime dot watching.

Finally looks like he's a bit exhausted in this picture!

1 Attachment

Tracker update for skinny, he's left the control and already a couple of miles down the road.

Skinny back on the move and on the descent

Go skinny go!

This is amazing. Chapeau @skinny!

TFFT

You know it's a bad signal.

You know he's on the move.

But...

"Sorry mate we just ran out of pizza"

Bjorn seems to be entering the signal blackout just as skinny's leaving it, guess it'll be about an hour before we can properly judge their relative positions. Good time to have a catch up with the some of the other races within the race.

@hippy finished the descent from CP3 and is on his way to Transfæ Transfá Transfȁ Transfå Romania.

No doubt ordering pizza and buffet

If skinny looks like that then imagine what everyone else will look like!

Anybody has route guesstimations from CP4 to Meteora?

Gary McGowan (who for some reason has two entries)

My ex-boss, terrific guy.

Something like that I'm guessing... however lots of banned roads in that area.

1 Attachment

.

1 Attachment

Ha!