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

I don't see war in Ukraine being a threat to it.
If it becomes a wider conflict then TCR would be the least of our worries.

I don't see war in Ukraine being a threat to it.

Yeah that's my feeling too but just thinking about the section in Romania as I guess it's not that far and whether they may change it slightly.

If it becomes a wider conflict then TCR would be the least of our worries.

True

I did consider these, which both go through Ukraine:
https://bike-sensation.com/carpathian-arch-race/
https://www.transost.de/en/homepage.html

Main hope is that the hot war will be over soon and things will be normal, from the point of view of a visitor at least, by the summer. But if it becomes a long stalemate, not so good.

I almost entered that first one last year I think. Think it got cancelled in the end from memory? Looks like it could be really cool.

Yeah, it looks good - just the Romanian roads / drivers are the problem. I've no idea what Ukranian drivers are like.

I really liked the look of the second one but it would have been a big challenge for my off-road skillz, and legs.

This is the kind of thing that could be concerning, both from a TCR point of view and generally:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/russia-may-pressure-serbia-to-undermine-western-balkans-leaders-warn

I'm a big fan of James' photography, and the writing is done by a former colleague of mine so quite excited to get a copy of this.

https://www.jamesrobertson.co.uk/itsarace

Thanks, ordered!

No one ever asks me for a written contribution even though I've probably written more on the TCR than anyone else.

Mostly it was "fucking fuckity fucking fuck" though so I can understand.

I've read more of it than was good for me and recall that most of it was 'gooch'. But your main point stands: I can still understand the reticence.

V1 of the manual has just dropped.

Realistically I don't think I'm likely to get very far in this with my knee still being fucked, so it was basically a case of paying £250 to get access to the manual in order to dream a little and satisfy my curiosity regarding whether they had decided to make the CP4 parcours (Transalpina off-road section) rideable in either direction or not.

Spoiler alert, for anyone else mulling over the same decision.

....
....

Yes! you can ride it which ever way you want.

I'm clearly missing something but I can't work out why anyone would do this the wrong way.

The other highlight was that they have sneaked in a finish parcours to tempt us away from that lovely main road that heads inland from Burgas towards Sofia. The finish parcours starts about 40-odd km north of Burgas. And the finish is not actually in Burgas any more, but a few km up the coast path, in what sounds like an unfinished seafront hotel. Glad I didn't spend much time routing the last section as it's all different now.

I'm a big fan of James' photography, and the writing is done by a former colleague of mine so quite excited to get a copy of this.

https://www.jamesrobertson.co.uk/itsarac­e

I'd completely forgot about this! Assume it's not shipped yet?

O shit, yeah need to pay the balance this week and get on this. Have done pretty much 0 route planning so far...

Not a bad idea to wait as things generally change a bit and you end up having to re-jig anyway. Plus it's quicker to do it when you don't have much time!

Yeah, good point.

I think a few others on here had a place from memory?

Is there still no way to download the Parcours other than manually tracing them? I cannot seem to do it.

Is there a banned roads policy or check re. routing from the organisers for the riders?

An afternoon last week I ended up on a downhill stretch of Bundesstraße which I'd be surprised if it wasn't on everybody's route in the opposite direction. I'd never ride again. 10.000 cars and 1.000 lorries a day according to here:

https://ga.de/region/sieg-und-rhein/hennef/b8-in-hennef-land-will-geforderten-radweg-bauen_aid-62953201

Me neither. I can only guess that it is deliberate, given they have done the new finish one that way, so people have to re-key them in as a test of mapping skills!

How stupid. You should just be able to download a parcours. What are you paying for?

It is hard enough to do your own route! It is pain having to recreate a 120km parcours manually. At least when you do your own route you cannot be penalised for having gone off course!

Is there a banned roads policy or check re. routing from the organisers for the riders?

There are some banned roads, but not that many. And no, of course Anna hasn't offered to go through everyone's routes to check for danger: I doubt she has either perfect knowledge of every road in Europe or the time to give them all sufficient attention!

I have had a look at that road and, if I was going that way, I would avoid that section based on my normal route planning practice. I expect most riders would follow a similar process and screen it out. In that sense, there is no need to ban it as the info which is available tells a clear enough story, and there are plenty of alternatives.

But I will inevitably end up on some roads which turn out not to be ideal, and I'll have to work out whether to reroute or carry on - like you did yesterday.

It's probably more likely to be a user training issue, but annoying they haven't fixed it.

I don't mind re-drawing it as it won't take me long and I'll then have a good look at it, which I haven't done so far. A pain for people who really don't like maps, but the more it's a test of mapping rather than of cycling, the more it favours me!

Let us know what they say when you email them ...

I CBA to mail Anna as it's not a big deal for me.

However, I have just re-remembered this post on the facebook group from a while back which explains how to do it. It does work (what he means by save/remember is 'bookmark'):

...

• You can actually incorporate the original and official TCR CP parcours into your route without manual routing! To do so, you have to
  
• save/'remember' (not sure how they call it in the EN version) the parcours of the TCR08 collection
  
• then when route-planning, click into the search bar for places
  
• there tick the box to show saved places
  
• zoom to the right spot and pick the parcours and include in route
  
• to be on the safe side, I'd create a route with a start & destination that lies somewhere before & beyond the parcours and then really 'include' the parcours into that route instead of picking the parcours marker as the start or destination; just because I'd fear something may go wrong with what exactly komoot will make the actual start/end point. You can then add additional waypoints right before and right after the parcours and then delete the dummy start/destination. And Voilà: original parcours in your own route planning.
  My explanation sounds more complicated than it is.. of course hahah