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

And people's mood at checkpoints etc is likely to be affected by fatigue and pain?

I've seen many good natured friends act like utter twats at o'dark'thirty at the 450km control of an Audax when tired.

You can find out what kind of a person you really are when you get to that stage of tiredness/fatigue as if being polite isn't entirely natural then the impolite nature will sneak past.

Longer rides (1200km and 1400km) with a mix of nationalities was a huge eye opener.

Roger on his Brompton is scratching by the looks of it.

Yep.

It’s a shame that the Brompton is taking partial blame for this, whatever bike you put it on, the “bespoke” Alfine 11 would be a piece of shit.

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The 11 on our workbike outlasted a rohloff on the other workbike, whilst probably getting more use, and I prefer the shifter and lack of a step between gears and the buzzing in the rohloffs lower gears makes it feel inefficient, even if its not.

Can’t find it, just looked through the transcontinental YouTube account and it wasn’t there on a quick look. What’s always struck me (being someone who is very bloody grouchy when tired) is that so many people are actually so well mannered at checkpoints etc - his manner was quite jarring at the time.

From reading around

• some are / were duff from the factory. SG7001-11 usually works however.
  
• some get broken when a shift isn't great, caused by too much pedal torque or bad cable tension
  
• poor bearing pre-load makes them mis-shift and leak
  
• changes in pressure can cause them to leak. They don't have a breather hole. Or rather they do but oil leaves with the air.
  
  

That said a lot of people seem to have got good mileage from them. Shrug.

Oh yeah, I know people have problems with them, just wanted to add that they're not all bad.

changes in pressure can cause them to leak. They don't have a breather hole. Or rather they do but oil leaves with the air.

That could be a killer on TCR. There will be huge air pressure changes due to:-

• A flight or two to get to the start (assuming not travelling on Eurostar)
  
• Altitude changes (multiple changes from 0m to ~2500m and back down again, etc)
  
• Temperature (from 5C to 50C in the sun)
  
  

I'd also worry about what also gets dragged back in through the breather hole.

think it's part of this one.

Yeah. There's no designated breather hole. There is enough of a gap somewhere for stuff to go in and out.

Bit like my lefty 2.0. Which is kinda worrying for the same reason!

In Roger's case I'd guess he either lost the Alfine lottery and it was duff from the factory or yeah, it barfed the oil out somewhere. You'd probably get too tired to back off properly when shifting too, so I imagine the guts suffered as well.

You'd need a lot of experience with the hub to make the distance I reckon, but if you rode one which had 800 trouble free miles or so on it, you'd get there if you knew what you were doing.

I'd also worry about what also gets dragged back in through the breather hole.

Despair and regret.

Terrible publicity for Notfine, after reading this I'd never buy one.

Reminds me that ultra races / events often were often founded to prove reliability strength of products, which is a useful thing for the general bike buying populace.

Skinny to hit CP4 later this afternoon?

Shame #34 had to scratch, would have been cool to see a Brompton finish... I guess I better step up to the mark? 😂 no chance id do as well as roger currently, but equally i wouldn’t be using an Alfine so maybe there’s hope!

Really starting to think I should call it quits at cp3. This part of Europe is not made to ride a bike. 2 deliberate close passes at high speed. I'm just riding around now with a feeling of "the next one that's coming is gonna be it". Tcr feels like riding on the right edge of the road, waiting for cars while being baked by the sun.

CP3 is a hell of an achievement.

If you get there and scratch you've got so much to be proud of and support from everyone you know. If you get there and find yourself thinking just a little bit further, you'll also have the support of everyone.

Do what you need to do, you've already done way more than us armchair dotwatchers :)

This here is the main thing that turns me off doing an event like this. Close passes scare the shit out of me on normal roads, let alone thousands of kms into a multi-week race a long way from home.

Stay safe mate, do whatever you think you need to do.

Make the decision that’s right for you.
Looks like you’ve had a tough head wind for a bit as well.
Doing amazing stuff, really inspiring.

Been riding into a head wind all day, checked the wind forecast and it turns around in a couple of days, that will now be when I arrive at Cp3 since progress has been so impacted by the wind.

Passed the first rider ive seen in a couple of days and he's heading south, it's all going to be massively split now from this wind.
Hard to not let it demoralise.
/whinge

Keep at it man.

There seems to be a special type of CZ redneck that enjoys a close pass. That and the roads are pretty terrible.

I've found the Austrian and Czech drivers to be top notch. Not a single beep from hundreds of passes, almost all give room, they know how to slow down. Polar opposite to the cunts in the UK.

Are you ok hippy? Not delirious?

I am amazed with all the Brompton/Alfail chat that the #gravelbros haven't been on this thread explaining how they would have been using 54t chainrings and stayed in the 11t sprocket this far if they had been riding TCR.

Who are these #gravelbros that you speak of?

Did they already finish?