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WEll done mate. Solid ride. Pass on my congrats to Steffen if he's about.
For me this is one of the big negatives for TCR. I often see roads when planning and think how amazing it looks, but then I think it will be slower (gravel hills etc) so go for the busier more boring quicker route.
Positives and negatives.
skinny
Thanks all!
Yeah I'll tell more about the ride but it was fucking amazing. The route is really something. It's planned to be a challenge. If you'd planned yourself a route like this for tcr, you could say you've fucked up. The route is not fluent or fast. But that's the thing with a race with a set route, everybody rides the same route so it doesn't have to be the fastest. So there was a lot of bumpy backroads, cycling routes, 200-300km of gravel. But that takes you to some really nice places and through europe on small roads with mostly very few cars. Though it does make it very clear why a race where you plan your own route to suite you is good. And if you're planning to do this, make sure you're familiar with the challenges, even if it is a ready route you don't have to plan yourself. The north has long gaps between services, especially on the Midsummer when this starts, it's a national holiday in Finland, so most places might not be open. I rode for six hours after bivvying looking for morning coffee before finding a place that's open and already at the start it's about 200km before the first place to stop, as it's night and remote. But even in the middle of europe, the roads are often so small that there's no services along them, so you might need to take detours or be ready for long stretches.
Loved it. Now I'm in Tarifa for a week eating icecream.