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Interesting analysis, Joe.
Doing them in a different order occurred to me.
My first thought was that they must have done it intentionally to have several different routes through the controls all of similar length. So I looked up the control opening and closing times, and that makes most of the variations more challenging. Also long ferries won't be allowed (only river crossing ferries).
I reckon if you can still make it work with closing times, it would be ok to change the order though. Sure, in audax, you can't do that, but Mike wasn't from an audax background. I think his Valleycats were like that, and in 2015 didn't some people do controls in a different order?
It adds another dimension to the route planning, which favours those who are strong in that aspect (aka hill avoiders).
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frank9755
I wish, unfortunately I'm looking forward to an austere summer this year...
@skinny yeah absolutely, plus they're walking distances so it'll be down shitty paths but it still could be useful as an approximate comparison between the different routes.
I quickly had a look at the FB page so you've got to hit every checkpoint whilst it's officially open to be in the GC. However, have people in the past missed a checkpoint deadline but then made latter ones in time been put into the GC? I guess it's a different circumstance if they were doing the checkpoints as intended.
I do see your point about gaming the race, but part of the Transcontinental's appeal is that it's interesting to see the large variation in route choice and brings in the more tactical elements rather than just cycling really fast all day and night. For the spectators, it was pretty interesting when in '15 people headed for the ferry and in '16 when Hippy and Frank ditched the conventional route through the Alps and went from CP2 to 3 via the Po Valley.
It also means that it becomes more competitive as given more route choice there's a higher chance there's flatter course better suited to a 'TT-specialist' whilst the skinny guys can enjoy the scenery in the mountains :)
From the organizers perspective though, having people do the checkpoints in any order would be really tough on them in terms of driving. Also, it would be difficult to keep an eye on everyone if some people are heading across Germany whilst everyone else is heading South East to the CP1.