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Yes, it did feel a bit like a long audax. They should make that more obvious on their website, rather than blathering on about the ‘spirit of adventure’ for pages and pages.
The ferry at the halfway point basically split the field into people who were and people who were not racing it - it only ran once a day, so making the Friday ferry put you a day ahead of everyone else. The two winners managed to put in 6 400k+ days to make the Thursday ferry, basically giving them an unassailable lead for the second half.
This meant the ‘field’ was effectively 15 riders, and everyone knew that everyone else on that ferry was in it to race. People like Meaghan and Bruno (5th, 6th) did so well by racing exactly like you said - they nailed the stops, could sleep on a sixpence, and churned away all day long, but not riding particularly fast. It was really interesting to chat to them all at the end and find out how different people’s strategies were, given that there was not much in it at the end.
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CowHen
Yes, TCR pairs are in a separate event. I challenged two guys riding toghether this year to check they were a pair!
Also, a pair is are not likely to be as fast as an equally-strong solo over the TCR as they have to wait for each other when one is tired, etc, which seems to offset their drafting and company advantage in practice. But solos forming unofficial alliances, then breaking them when they have served their purpose will always be faster.
NC4000 sounds more like PBP, or audax in general, where riding with lots of others is a big part of the event and completely within the rules and the spirit.
Some people on TCR are not that fussed about the race aspect, riding it as a personal challenge to get to the finish. But it is important for me - I raced as hard as I could for 31st place last time, and was hoping to do so again this time. I get a lot of my satisfaction from beating guys who are basically faster riders but can't quite put it all together so well - from planning the best route to not wasting time at stops. If the other guys are not racing back, all that feels a bit hollow, so I wouldn't feel good about it.