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@cliveo
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.