Transcontinental Race No. 7 - TCR7 - #TCRN07 - 2019

Bollocks just typed a pile of stuff and the train shook and I bumped Cancel button.

Hard edition
Fresh
Bad knee
Some dumb decisions
Some good decisions
My slowest TCR

Thanks @Samuli @scherrit for hanging at the finish. Good to see Ryan again too, he's nicked my sunscreen hair idea. Good hanging with riders at the finish again, it's not a pub 38 but the Atmos was good.

Dunno if I'm going to be physically up for Transiberica at the moment. Certainly don't see it being a competitive attempt. Dunno why I thought I'd get out of TCR Scott free.

Need to check tracker to see where Amy and Doug are.

@GoatandTricycle still trucking?

Yeah, just taken cover in a McDonald’s.
This morning I was worried about the heat with no shops and water and well, now I have a monsoon...

Yeah, I've never taken my rain jacket on and off as much as France. Make sure you stock up on food, it's slim pickings out there.

Go goat, you have done amazingly well to get this far.

Awesome work mate, been enjoying following your ig, best of luck with the remaining

Thanks guys, not really gone to plan but I’m keeping at it till the bitter end

You're doing great mate, keep the pedals turning!

awesome stuff dude. keep rolling

Nothing does but you're doing great!

Good stuff - It's not so much the quality of the plan that gets you through these things, but how you are able to respond when, inevitably, things don't go to plan!
And I expect the end will be sweet!

Thanks guys, not really gone to plan but I’m keeping at it till the bitter end

Amazing! How are the Achilles doing?

Nice one Ross. Great effort.

ivans finished! fixed over all of that. amazing / ouch.

I was racing this one... for about two days. :S

Finishing is winning.

Getting 39.5 on a garmin in the sun doesn't mean that was the air temp.

True but air temp is measured in the shade so even if the Garmin was getting radiated heat, so was I. Maybe it wasn't as hot as previous years but the climbing was harder so there was less ventilation compared to the more rolling finish of Greece/Turkey. I cramped pretty hard on the descent of that Bulgarian UFO and had to make an effort to up the salt intake after that.

Cenis was a feckin' long climb.

You're doing great. Keep rolling!

You said previously that he was fairly hardcore but fixed... Phew, we need a non forum rep function somehow!

Well done @hippy! Interested to hear your thoughts on going east to west instead? From what you've said above harder with the alps coming later in the race?

OK - I see what you mean - although I do remember a bit of a climb just before Alexandroupoli in Greece in 2016 that was very hard in the heat. Also relatively short climb out of Bellinzona in Swiss part of Italy.

On the first day it was uncomfortable in the afternoon on the main road with no shade and little breeze, but my stupid fall meant that I was an hour or two later than I should have been, so it had cooled down by the time I got to the first climb, and it was a good amount of shade once I'd got into it. I was taking salts from my first water refill stop at about 10 or 11am.

I hit the second big climb at 11am on the second day, just when I thought it would be getting really hot. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too bad as there was a fair bit of shade on the way up and I guess it was a cooler day. At the top, it was even a bit chilly.

The climb on the third day was ok too. Started in sun but a good bit of shade and I had some rain near the top of the first bit.

If we had had the kind of weather they have had in virtually every other TCR, ie 40+ degrees for at least a couple of days, those three climbs would have been much harder and probably knocked a few people out of the race.

The only time I thought the E-W was a factor was the final run into Brest. It was hella stormy. I'm used to fighting headwinds and shit coming from a flat desert but I've not often been blown around with such force for so long. It was kind of a freak weather day though (https://www.france24.com/en/20190810-france-luxembourg-tornado-southwest-lorraine-injuries-homes-storms) so it might not be such a factor if you're not cursed with Storm Magnet powers like me.

By the time I hit the French Alps I was getting over my knee dramas so I was just 'normal' slow rather than 'broken slow'.

The whole route was harder I reckon, simply because they'd designed the parcours to eliminate people like me taking flat shortcuts and it kept people off bigger roads a lot more it seemed. There was less of the head down TTing along a main road kind of riding. It made more a slightly more chilled event but physically harder. Maybe without the crash I'd have no had the knee problems but it's hard to say.

Yeah, I didn't feel too bothered by the heat mostly, but I'd done TPR in the heatwave beforehand so probably had some heat adaptations already. It was the wet and cold later on that was more annoying. I was so annoyed not to make Italy one night and spend £150 on a hotel because I was going to take too long and it was only 3C in Switzerland. I did stay for their breakfast though and had a lovely morning of scenery instead.
I saw 39C on the 'UFO' climb and another climb but I don't remember which one. It seemed to cool down for much the rest of the race except maybe the Italy section. My memory is pretty bad for details like this though.

There was less of the head down TTing along a main road kind of riding.

Depends on your route!

You saved some distance with hilly options but I had 1000km of flat TTing all the way from Vranje to the alps. Unfortunately my neck wasn't up to it. I also had planned another long, flat bit across Switzerland, and my route across France was selected for flatness.

The parcours were hard but my total climbing was just over 38,500 metres, with 4050 total kms. For people who planned it that way, this was one of the flattest TCRs, so very disappointed to have missed out!