Transcontinental Race No. 6 - TCR6 - #TCRN06 - 2018

1. Sure, you need to implement your strategy properly. If you have to charge other than when you are asleep, or risk taking power down to the last drop, you might as well have taken a dynamo

2. AA batteries

Registered to volunteer at the start and finish. planning to cycle there. Hopefully no heatwaves this year. Plus one for dynamo ;)

1. you might as well have taken a dynamo

2. Greenpeace wants a word...

Using half a dozen AAs has lower carbon footprint than manufacturing a dynamo.

start and finish.

Good stuff! I guess you'll take the direct route and get there in time for the leaders!

Solar panel ?

If it weighs less than 1kg and saves more than 3 minutes per day of plugging and unplugging things and/or opening packets of AAs then Chris White's calculations suggest it's a win.

I think my dynamos have generated more elec than half a dozen AAs and will continue to do so until. It's not just about carbon footprint there's the chemicals within the batteries and the physical waste.

Someone has done this (TCR or TABR?). I can't remember the outcome, I think it was a bit of a faff. Depends how fast you're moving and how much night riding you're doing. I like the fit and forget nature of a dynamo.

I think my dynamos have generated more elec than half a dozen AAs and will continue to do so until. It's not just about carbon footprint there's the chemicals within the batteries and the physical waste.

Yes, but there's no such thing as a free lunch. The energy has to come from somewhere. In this case you have to eat (even) more food (7 Days croissants) to generate the power, rather than taking it from a plug into a power bank. I reckon you are probably less efficient than the average European power station so your dynamo will have a higher carbon footprint per Watt.

And your dynamo took resources to manufacture. As do AAs and power banks. None of us know what the relative amounts are but, the rule of thumb is that more complex and more expensive something is, the more resources and energy it takes to produce it. So, I would be willing to bet that many times more resources went into producing your £x00 dynamo than my 4 power banks and 4-pack of AAs from Poundland!

Oh no! I have to eat more! There's a nice problem to have for once.
I eat more food, you use more power off the grid. I burn kebabs, you burn coal.

What happens to my dynamo when I finish the race? I use it to commute to work with for the next 5 years. What happens to your powerbanks and collection of AAs?

Submitted a volunteer application!

Chosen the finish as my first choice - because sitting in the sun in Greece sounds pretty fun.

Second choice is CP2 with the intention of when my shift is over to dash it down on my bike to CP4 whilst you guys meander up towards Poland.

Cool, be good to meet you at the finish at some point Joe. If I don’t get a place volunteering I might just cycle from start to finish anyway. Crash the finishers party

Volunteered an all, Might as well see some pain before doing the Race to the rock I guess.

Likewise!

I didn’t get a volunteer place last year - although I didn’t get rejected but I went to checkpoint 1 anyway with my bike.

Does anyone have a map with the mandatory climbs to the checkpoints? I'm struggling with the coordinates and the lack of roads on any of the maps (Google, OSM, sattelite,...).

Ride with GPS accepts the coordinates.

The CP3 coordinates give me some spot in Belgium:

And there is no road to CP2, or is it the long way round via the 203 and 206?

I've understood the powerbanks are actually not that effiecient, some power is lost on the way. And lithium is problematic. The price of a dynamo probably comes more from the hours spent making the complicated parts. And you probably won't need to eat any more than you would otherwise as you're putting out as much power as you can anyway, you'll just be that much slower.

Agree Li is nasty. But the human body is only about 25% efficient so much worse than power banks.
Time spent making fiddly parts still has a carbon footprint: if it's people doing work, they need to eat and consume other stuff which all has a cost.
The only bit of the cost of the dynamo which doesn't have environmental cost is the IPR or value in its patents.

The challenge with a lot of green technologies is to get them to the point that they use less energy in their manufacture than they save in their usable life. A bike dynamo has its advantages but it's far from obvious it passes that test!

The CP3 coordinates give me some spot in Belgium:

You need to either take the comma out between the two numbers, or put one in - can't remember which - but then it will work.
For CP2 you might have to change the type of map to OSM. Failing that, set it to walking, or draw in manually

The people making them would probably eat anyway, about the same amount. But indeed manufacturing anything takes energy and resources and usually creates waste.

And there is no road to CP2, or is it the long way round via the 203 and 206?

Reading the race manual and looking at my route, you need to follow the 902 to get down from Mangart Sedlo, then onto the 203, then onto the 206 to get to the Vrsic pass. That's my understanding. May be wrong but you know better than to trust someone from the Internet. :)

That’s my interpretation too. for what that’s worth.

But that means you would have to climb up to Mangart first and then turn around to come down via the 902 and climb again via the 206?

I think that is the idea!