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

Quite hard to understand what they are saying :(

Had a pizza then a beer tweeted where is hippy. Ice cream repeat ........

Excellent event this evening. Great to see so many of you.

Great little event and absolutely packed. Not exactly sure who I met but was lovely to chat to you folks

That just giving page is a few years old... but still usable

Looks like the worst boy band ever.

Did they stand up at the key change?

Yes, same here! Good to meet more people, catch up with others and hear pearls of wisdom from @skinny

So not so much excitement to report from yesterday. Lionel Bobb climbed the CP4 parcours and descended. Only 28.2 km for the day but it was, in his words, “...today was a very difficult one. The hardest thing I've ever done. Yes Meteora here I come! 😊”

He is now underway and riding south. 32km already today.

Neil Matthew had a more successful day after his Vienna diversion. His riding pattern still seems to entail most of his mileage occurring after dark. He rode 60km up until 10:00 pm last night and has ridden almost 70 km since then. He seems determined.

I was at the back trying to stuff as much Rapha chamois cream into my pants as possible.

Lionel is putting in a big day today. 115km already, over the border into Montenegro and he's still riding.

Neil managed 90 km but then rode into Brno in the Czech Republic where he appears to be scouting around for a shop for something specific.He's been there for around three hours already.

Probably looking for Sports Direct

Lots of nice bars in and around Brno (that I didn't stop at, #sadface).

A very solid ride from Lionel Bobb yesterday after the rigours of the CP4 parcours. He rode 144 km, very close to his average, over challenging terrain. Over 9 hours on the bike yesterday and almost three hours and 62 km already today. He has around 571 km to go. Is it too much to hope that he will finish on Sunday on the 28th day of his ride?

Neil Matthews also made progress yesterday. He tends to ride quite a bit in the wee hours and therefore it is difficult to ascribe his mileage to be day or another as the cut off on frrt is 10 pm CEST. He covered 104 km yesterday in 7.5 hours but did spend quite a bit of time in Brno either shopping or lost. He is reporting difficulties still with navigation and posted an Instagram picture of his bike in a desolate urban area under a flyover. That said, he is moving and has ridden for 4 hours since 10 pm yesterday and covered 60km. He is 153 km away from CP3. Let’s hope he makes it tomorrow. He may be now just over half way. This means that, unless he ups his pace, we can expect a ride of around 50 days.

Once Lionel is in, I'll unpin the thread from the front page.

He is planning to finish on Sunday.

Poor Neil. His epic struggle relegated below the Vuelta and weekend rides.

Is he just doing overnights to avoid heat and the majority of traffic?

So yesterday Lionel had a solid day in the saddle. He rode for just over 10 hours and covered 202.9 km. This is an outstanind ride for someone who has been getting on and off his bike every day for the past 25 days and who is now riding over the terraine and road surfaces of Albania with heat and dogs to contend with. He was up and off early this morning and has already covered 60 km today. He has 334 km to go. He has averaged just over 150 km a day so far. This is not insignificant and to pull a 200 km ride out of the bag at this stage is magnificent.

He is in good spirits and planning to reach the finish line on Sunday. If he makes it, which I am confident that he will, he should finish in around 154th place out of 249 starters.

Nowhere have I seen him moaning about his gooch. He should be awarded bonus points for that.

Neil continues to confuse and confound. Remember, this is an athlete. Someone who has ridden LEJOG in four days. He is averaging around 90 km or 56 miles a day. That is little more than some peoples' commutes. That said yesterday he increased his distance to 117.3 km on top of 104 km the day before. His riding pattern appears to be the same. Most of it during the hours of darkness but some of it in the day. He is currently moving and now only 61 km from CP3 having covered 39.2 km since 10 pm local time yesterday. He is just getting into the hilly section before the serious climbing close to the CP. He is still riding the course and every day moves higher up the leader board.

The one point about Neil that I don't understand is his TITS - "time in the saddle". Even his longer days are only around 7 hours and some days it falls to around 5 hours or even less. He is taking some great and very moody photos. Perhaps he is building up a portfolio.

Whatever he's doing, it isn't the Transcontinental Race.

Always an interesting question.

No one, I hope, would deny that Lionel Bobb is racing. He has measured what he can give and is giving that. Recovering and riding again. He will "beat" almost 100 riders who sprinted off but, for one reason or another, didn't make it. @skinny won because he rode and rested in the best way to cover the distance in the least time. No one is looking at scratched riders and saying that he didn't really beat them, because he did and so will Lionel.

If Neil Matthews has an injury that is making him struggle so that he can't ride any more distance than he is doing each day but is, in a measured way, giving it his all, he is racing. If he is pootling along a course, stopping to smell the roses and take snaps, perhaps he is touring. But if he set out to race but simething external (such as work committments) intervened that required him to give day time attention to it but such is his determination, he is ploughing ahead when he can...well then, I am not too sure.

The one thing that is certain. While Lionel's time will be about the same as, say, David Coulon in prior years, it is a time that people like me would struggle to attain although it is possibly that we could. It would be a challenge and in my fantasies of riding the TCR, I have always thought of a mileage schedule of between 150-200 km per day depending on how mountainous the day was. It would be a challenge to compete against Lionel or David. I would sincerely hope that I could ride the course, if indeed I could ride it, quicker than Neil. Perhaps Neil is setting a standard to open up the race to more people.

Are we completely sure that it's the same Neil Matthews as the one who did a four-day LEJOG?

(We probably are, I just haven't followed up any links to stuff about him on-line.)

Yes.

Here you go Oliver. From his Instagram.

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Thanks. Could he be cycling with more advanced cancer?

I really hope to be watching your dot on one of these one year @WornCleat

Did he definitely complete that?