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

Anyone starting the race with the knowledge that they won't be intending to finish, or even trying to finish, or even giving it their best go in their own time at their own pace - people riding without the ethos of the race - are tools. Those still out there or those who scratched through best intentions or because it was just too brutal show these people up. Completely agree skinny.

Respect to Mikko Makipaa.
Fifth attempt and fifth finish today.
No training!

can't bring myself to criticise him while sitting comfortably behind my keyboard

You must be new here. :)

Think you're confused. He's a way away.

Can I ask, if you have time, to work out if Samuli's form in the last few days when he started picking up places, would have put him if he sustained it from the start? He appeared to have a slow first few days by bad routing, but then shot up the placings and has finished high in previous years. I wondered this morning if he could have challenged skinny or been top 3 if he had a better start?

The race usually spreads out as the faster people get further ahead, so what Samuli managed to do is unusual. He seemed to change up a gear after day 5, from averaging about 300km per day to 350km per day (ignoring day 1 when everyone goes further). If he had done an extra 50km per day on days 2-5 and an extra 100 on day 1, that would have put him 300km further up the road. At 20km/hour, that would have been 15 hours, which would have put him 2 places higher.
Of course, maybe he wouldn't have been able to go as fast as he did in the later stages if he had been more tired early on, so can never really be certain.
Would be interesting to know if it was a deliberate plan to stay fresh for when it got tough.
He wasn't challenging Skinny, Bjorn or the other guys in the top few places - even though he speeded up, they were still getting further ahead of him each day as they were doing (even) bigger daily distances.

Apidura Insta post said he's finished EVERY tcr since its inception.Sightly misleading ;)

any links to the MASH debacle? Can't find the douchebaggery

Find @notchas on IG.

On more positive news cap #23 has arrived an hour and a half ago. I messaged him and he will update his social media soon.

ta

Went down to see him, damn he's had some issue.

Said he should send the wheel back to hunt, warranty that!

Is there a reason people did not do poland and Moldova boarder apart from the distance.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/706929922691019?view=permalink&id=1584719268245409

He says they intended to finish. Still looks like they booked flights ahead of the party.

More detailed than I hoped. Thank you!

Yes, Dalgas. Good finish, congratulations to him.

His version will be far more interesting, when he's had a few beers and got his head back together!

Pfft, that's weak. Seems they clearly have the physical strength to continue, they'd just rather be at the messenger world cup. Poor form.

Young, naive, probably ignorant of the recent history of TCR and its true spirit. 'Hungry' instead of Hungary, often in posts, plus much 'rad', much 'gnarly' sensationalism. The bike courier WC in Canada is distraction which has split their attention.

I was like them that at that age, so I'll not be too judgemental. They will get it, probably, just need some more maturing, and education, rather than putting down.

All fair points and all true. However, it's hard not to be disappointed for those who wanted to compete and missed out and would have given the race their all. Anyways as has been mentioned earlier, it's easy to snipe from behind a keyboard. I'm not out there doing it so I'll get back to enjoying the dots roll home.

Disappointing indeed. It's been another great TCR though - a lot of people to marvel at and admire - dot watching is IMMENSE fun!

Exactly.
Last Facebook post implies that they just thought they would be waaaay quicker than they were. I can relate to that part. Actually quite a nice reply I got.

So did Ian To win the Transcontinental Tour?

Love this vid. I'm unbelieved by the whats possible. @skinny looking fresh as a daisy. https://youtu.be/031ziyotUIc

I was wondering how did @skinny get such nice fully tanned arms!

Love the quote 'stop and go!' And a 'casual 30kph' XD

overconfidence and poor planning...

it has become apparent to me that many people felt disrespected by cap 256's scratch. i want to express how difficult of a decision it was for us to scratch and that we meant no disrespect towards anyone involved in this event be it racers or organizers or applicants. we had booked our flights out on the 14th day thinking we could finish the race by the 13th day. upon our arrival in romania it became painfully obvious that this goal was overly ambitious. we looked into changing our flights and the fact was that we could not afford to do so. this was clearly poor planning on our part. so we cut our losses and rode as far was we could. the flight out takes us to montreal where we are to race in the cycle messenger world championships where we had hoped to spin stories to our friends about how we rode from belgium to greece in 13 days. we absolutely had every intention of finishing this race and i want to make it clear that it was not a decision we made lightly. it was not about leaving this to go do something else, it was about realizing we could not make our deadline. we are both incredibly sad to not have made it to meteora. while our scratch may be disappointing to many of you, believe me it is disappointing to us as well. riding what we did gave us nothing but the utmost respect for all of you regardless if that respect is reciprocated.
best,
cap 256