Transcontinental Race No. 8 - TCR8 - #TCRN08 - 2022

The trouble at the moment is that there's still no vaccine available. Once it gets produced and distributed, I guess we'll be on the downwards spiral regardless of the number of new cases emerging.
I reckon most of the countries will ban public / mass events of any kind over the coming weeks, for an indefinite period or at least for the following three weeks. But until August - either everything will be restored back to normal or the World will be at the brink of doom. In the first case - TCR will be fine. In the second case - no-one will care about TCR anyway.

Italy Divide postponed to 31 July. Maybe they are reasonably confident that they can stage it then, or they are just hoping...

at the moment is that there's still no vaccine available

I hear from friends in pharmaceuticals that they are not expecting a vaccine until next year but they believe that treatments, to help more people survive, should be available this year.

Ah good to know, cheers

TCR has now officially been postponed until next year.

Hi,

It is with a heavy heart we’ve come to the conclusion that we must postpone TCRNo8 until 2021.

Unlike any global health crisis in our lifetime the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is causing fear, confusion and suffering, affecting everyone from all walks of life, across borders, it is affecting the global economy and our everyday lives in a way we’ve not experienced for decades.

Sporting events of all kinds are making the difficult decision to postpone and at Lost Dot we accept this cause of action is necessary for Transcontinental Race and Trans Pyrenees Race 2020. The decision has not been an easy one however, Lost Dot feel that the TCR should be part of a solution and never part of a problem. We were hopeful that the race could play an active part in a recovery come the summer and a coming together of our community after a fearful period of isolation would be something positive to work towards. However, we are now convinced the isolation measures in place may continue for a considerable period of time, that our riders and volunteers would appreciate some clarity in these difficult times and that the pressure to train and maintain fitness under difficult circumstances is not beneficial right now.

We feel the right thing to do is to postpone both events and allow time and space for our riders, volunteers, members of Lost Dot and our race partners to focus energy on any assistance we can provide within our local communities. Our duty is to look beyond ourselves and our immediate community to the wider society and community that we are a part of. We must take responsibility and our share of the burden in reducing the spread of the virus to reduce the impact on our stressed public institutions such as health services. Our friends and peers within the community of nurses and doctors on the front line need our solidarity and support, we must all play our role in reducing the spread of the virus to protect the most vulnerable in society - our friends, family and neighbours.

TCRNo8 is now provisionally planned for July / August 2021. We hope that the route can remain the same and that the race can be part of a recovery process that will support individuals and businesses across Europe to find their feet again. We plan to be in touch in November 2020 with any potential updates to the date and route giving riders the usual time to plan and train for the race. All riders who paid the first deposit for TCRNo8 are invited to keep their place on TCRNo8 in 2021. To maintain that place Lost Dot must retain the (nonrefundable) deposits already paid. Our bursary winners will retain their places and their bursary grants for 2021 and we commit to the planned donations to our chosen charities and to do what we can to support our regular freelance contributors who may struggle with sudden lack of work. We will provide further detail on how and when to pay the balance payment to secure your place on TCRNo8 (2021)in the spring of 2021. We hope any training and planning already undertaken will not be wasted but can be built on during this unusual year.

Between now and November 2020 we ask all of our riders to remain optimistic, train whenever and however possible, share positivity on the facebook group, keep in touch, remember we are a community, reach out if you feel down or need help or support. Stay strong and fit, do what you can to support your neighbours and of course follow all WHO and local authority advice.

Our thoughts are with you all.

Anna

Hows everyone doing? And what have you been doing to amuse yourself? Are all your bikes well oiled and squeaky clean? Or all salty from sweat and tears?

Recently built up an old frame to use as a commuter aaaaaand we're locked down. A 1x experiment with 36 up front and 11/46 at the rear. Tops out at about 36km/h and is easy climbing.

My friend in the big east of France says he can't ride more than 1km from his house and they have said that rule could be extended until mid June. That is pretty harsh. He's so happy he has a tacx.

Strange times, stay strong, stay positive and stay healthy.

I picked a good year not to enter many races, bad year to do other travel and gigs though.
Badlands is also delayed until Sep 6th, which I thought was fine but realise it now clashes with BoB.
Turbo is getting a workout these days. To be fair, it was getting a workout before Corona so I feel like I jumped the gun a bit with lockdown.

You guys not allowed out much then? Sneak over the Sauer if so, we're pretty much unrestricted for exercise if we're solo or in household groups.

This winter I tried out FulGaz. First time with such a software. Was pretty cool. Put an old monitor on a workshop stand in front of the bike. The thing I liked best were the memories of the ride throughout the day. It was almost as if I was somewhere else. I did a lot of racing sim back in the day and thought what it would be like to get a projector and beam those vids on a wall.

yeah we can go out over here with no probs. It's actually busier outside in certain areas than I've ever seen. I was thinking about riding up the Sauer and checking the foot bridges. But just look don't touch. Last thing I need is to become a border crossing criminal.

What is FulGaz? Just videos of rides? Could be a nice distraction. I sometimes use the old Sufferfest videos (before it was commercialised) to watch, if I'm doing boring sessions.

Just videos yeah, https://fulgaz.com/fulgaz-rides/
You can watch them without an account, and download them in multi resolutions with a membership. With a membership and a direct drive trainer it changes the resistance based on grade.

The interesting thing with the Tacx software, which only works with a Tacx as far as I know, is that you can load/create GPS routes and ride them. There is certainly enough time left to ride the TCR2021 route a few times over :)

Sounds like what you could do with Computrainer. Everything old is new again...

I'm busy doing intensive de-training and peaking my weight.

Nurseries closing has been a heavy productivity blow. Wife has been really busy at work, working all last weekend as well as through the week, so I've been parenting nearly-3yo almost full time and doing scraps of work at 5am before she gets up.

No time for cycling, other than taking daughter out on bike seat to the Gruffalo Trail, to see the birds on the canal or to Richmond Park to see the deer, before that got banned.

Glad I put off spending every evening trying to find the best of 6 alternative routes across Germany and didn't get round to buying flights and ferries. Actually, must cancel my start hotel in Brest.

like movies and music

There is a joke going around over here:

"When this shit is over, I'm going to take a few days off and just relax at home."

fitting to your situ innit?

Until last week, I never knew how incredibly uncomfortable our wooden kitchen chairs are. We've had them for about 10 years and never harboured any bad feelings towards them. Now it's like, fuck those chairs!

Was thinking a drum stand with saddle mod might be a good alternative. Wonder if a day on that would still cause chaffing.

First days wfh people came and collected screens etc. This week it’s office chairs.

@hippy @cybernck, thanks for the tip on cassette and RD. 32 on the SS version seems to be fine so far.

@jakemcree Brilliant, glad to have been of help :)

Email from Anna yesterday. Interesting bit was that they will tweak the controls. Glad I didn't spend too long fine-tuning my route!

I hope you are as healthy and happy as possible in these difficult times.

I wanted to let you know that we intend to present TCRNo8 for the summer of July 2021 and shall proceed with plans unless any major changes in the COVID-19 virus or international virus management prevent us from staging the event. As in 2020 we shall be as transparent with you as possible - endeavouring to make decisions in a timely manner and communicating them to you as quickly and as clearly as possible.

We’ll share new control points and as much detail as we are able to in a new Race Manual due in December 2020 - before Christmas. We hope that the start date can remain roughly as planned and we intend that the race should be as ‘TCR’ as possible however, given the specific challenges of presenting a multi-national event attended by riders from all over the world, we felt it was necessary to adapt TCRNo8 from the route originally planned for 2020 to a route that we hope could be more robust in these unusual times.

I wonder how radical the route changes will be?

Most probably (and unfortunately) keeping it within EU.

Most of it was already all in the EU.

You lose the corner of Bosnia, Serbia, Albania etc but that's pretty much what the last couple have looked like anyway, with controls forcing you more north.

And also possibly keeping it in the "main EU" e.g. Schengen, doing a circular route perhaps...?