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

IPhone snap. Detailed ones from the camera to follow this afternoon....

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Fairlight x Rapha coming soon

Thanks @Monster1985 @skinny @PhilDAS

I'm guessing ^that pic in the shop is pre race? Or has it become a museum piece now?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX3hgm6lMdj/?taken-by=restrap

Where's Josie off to? Looks like a dead-end according to freeroute :/

Pretty though at least...

I need to find all of the places my route was an issue and update OSM.
Is there any easy way to do that?

I see there's been discussion about my speed at the race. There's really no epic story behind the change in speed.

I had basically made just a draft of the first part of the route to cp1 and checked the details too late to start over so had to route on to bikepaths etc. to avoid highways and had also routed onto small roads going through villages in France, with roads so rough I had to ride rather slowly. It was also not that straight and there was some hills... The western option across Alps was also slighlty slower, though nice. As were the roads in France and through the Black Forest. But they were so slow it kind of seemed pointless to be suffering to be competitive as I was already behind. And then there was the death of Frank Simmons. I was kind of dropping on to a touring gear for a while, to just finish with a decent time. But then I remembered how fun racing is and started smashing it. And I knew the rest of my route should be actually pretty good. It became even more fun when I saw I was actually passing a lot of other racers and that I was taking a different route than anyone in front of me. My route wasn't the easiest with the mountains in Macedonia and Greece, but my legs felt really good after about a week of racing, the heat didn't bother too much and I managed to pass lots of the cities I needed to ride through during night, to avoid traffic.

Really enjoyed the race. Top 10 result is awesome. But even though I did go pretty much all out at the end, I know I could be even faster in the future.

The bike was good as usual. It's not light and it could have bigger gears (the cassette is missing the smallest cogs as the hub is only 120mm wide) but it work really well for this kind of riding, reliable and comfortable and feels like a fast road bike. No mechanicals really. One puncture and the front wheel ended up being slightly out of true but that doesn't matter much with so many spokes and sturdy rim.

Amazing ride

Thanks.

Nope post race dust and all....it's in the shop at the moment

I'm all star struck with the interaction from competitors on here! @samuli @skinny @hippy @boomboom et al sorry for not mentioning everyone.

Yeah, I saw that in the insta link posted above. Really cool!

@skinny Are you going to post your power etc like you have done in previous years?

She's done a u-turn. Must have thought you could get through to the 220 in Serbia. Looks like you could on google.

If you followed the trail to the red line and crossed the border there.

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Definitely a route through according to bing. Wonder why she u'turned

Wonder how Apidura feel about a bike covered in Restrap bikepacking gear in the same shop as their Rapha collaboration

I would have thought the more people that get into high quality bikepacking gear the better....

exciting! I'll pop round at lunchtime tomorrow for a look.

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Yeah, it looks possible but I guess it's an unoffical crossing though so could be 'interesting' when she tries to leave Serbia without an entry stamp...

Yeah probs be next month some time.

Cheers, smart move.

What chain lube were you guys using? Very mixed weather, so I was wondering whether you had problems.

I'm all star struck with the interaction from competitors on here!

Imagine how I felt this afternoon when, on my way back to the office, I saw both @skinny and @hippy chatting by the wall - never have my autograph book when I need it!