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

I have used Acuvue Oasys which you can wear (and sleep in) for up to six days at a time.

Neil Matthews put in another solid day yesterday. 8.6 hours on the bike and 156 km covered. He is in Austria and should cross into Hungary today.

His riding pattern appears to have altered. He didn’t ride in the night last night. Perhaps the cooler weather is suiting him better. He may even have stayed in an hotel.

Only 665 km to CP4. Should be there by the weekend at this rate.

I bought some but never got round to trying them. Apparently they work for some people and not others. I was worried that cycling for six days would inevitably lead to get dry eyes with them. Did they work for you?

They did work but were not perfect. For one day I wore glasses tho to give my eyes a rest. Not ideal tho for the reasons you mention above.

Ah, shame I missed the moment when his dot was bobbing up and down. :)

Well done, Lionel.

@31trum doesn't have too many problems with his contact lenses (not that he would ever really ride the TCR :) .)

I agree that rain on glasses at night is pretty horrible, especially in traffic or around bright lights. However, I've found that a good squirt of silicon-based furniture polish helps prevent the rain from beading on the surface of the lenses.
I've also put a wipe of clear silicon sealant along the fingers of all of my long cycling gloves, so that I can wipe the lenses - windscreen wipers effectively. That also works really well.

Good tips. But in TCR you're probably not going to have that stuff to hand, when the storm kicks off. I got caught by a biblical rainstorm in Croatia in TCR 2016 and I had to take my glasses off. I could just make out the white line in the middle of the road and followed that. Would have loved contacts then, but wouldn't have been able to put them in with waterlogged hands. Best plan would be to put them in before the storm came, of course!

Did anyone get the story behind rider 160 in the TCR and his return to base and loop-the-loops?

Was he the one who backtracked on the first night?

If so I read somewhere where he said that he basically followed the line the wrong direction then was horrified to find himself coming down the Muur (I exaggerate slightly). He then made a few other basic errors and scratched after a couple of days, saying he had learned a lot from the experience.

Was he the one who lost his GPS and then broke something wheel related?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Transcontinental.en/permalink/1979409662109699/

Day 2 of my race report in English. https://cyclingadventurestom.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/day-2-the-race-to-cp1/
Probably a bit too long and detailed for you guys but my target audience is friends, family and colleagues. Most of them don't really know what ultracycling is.

Needs more swearing

That's right, he was using the condition of Belgian roads as an excuse - if his wheels weren't robust enough for them, he would have struggled later!

"I decide not to follow my route, I do not want to leave the group"

Um...

It doesn't sound like anything was tightened up on his bike and every time he hit a pothole it destroyed something. I mean, how does a pothole cause your RD to go into your spokes on a correctly setup bike?

Enjoying the write up!

Did strike me as a bit mechanically illiterate

4000k adventure race is the perfect time to learn how to fix a bike..

I found it really interesting.
thanks

I mean, how does a pothole cause your RD to go into your spokes on a correctly setup bike?

Rear hanger bent in transit but not noticed on arrival, due to excitement of upcoming event? Happens to the best of us * cough *
Saying that it wouldn't be pothole related.

I've dragged an RD into a rear wheel but that was because the wheel was new to the bike so the limits were just a bit off and when it snagged I was already angry so just slammed the pedals causing total destruction. Normally you'd hear something was off (benefit of not using headphones) and avoid the 1000W death pedal.

Yes, on the way back from Brighton last year, went into bottom gear for devils dyke and heard the twanging. Immediate stop pedaling and dismount. Then remembered niece had knocked my bike over a few days before = bent hanger

Wasnt there an on site mechanic at the start , he was interviewed on gcn i think.