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

Thanks!

Makes sense. Thanks

Time to ride through to the finish for the front three then.

Seems I investigated their speed through the night, very slow. Strasser with a lead now. Wonder if if cab make earlier ferry than Adam thought.

Interesting lead in to the finish. Chris is following the river south, while Adam appears to be
heading across country... potentially for a more direct route.

Ulrich greyed out and last seen 2 hours ago??? edit: scratch that... he's moving again. How dare he take a break after a brutal parcour ;-)

look at that trio-ish (197-233-160) that is now in the parkour behind UB...they chasing hard!

Cristoph has the choice of all 3 ferries. Adam can only go t eastern ferry.

He will have to hustle to make the 17:30

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Riders will soon cross from Romania into Bulgaria for the final ~450km. The border between Romania and Bulgaria is drawn by the Danube river and riders have only three options to cross it, all of which are ferries and the bridge option is disallowed.

The three ferry options are as follows from east to west, and they’re marked on the map below:

Bechet to Oreahovo runs every two hours from 05:00 to 23:00 (20 minutes)
Turnu Magurele-Nikopol are 08:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 19:30 (25 minutes)
Zimnicea - Svishtoc are 08:30, 11:30, 14:30 and 17:30 (15 minutes)

Cheers, just looking for that
Edit, Done that twice now in this thread...

Looks like Christoph is 80k from Turnu, so will likely make the 4pm ferry, but comfortably make the 7:30 one; Adam has no chance of making the 5:30 ferry from Zimincea (190k to go), but could make the 7:30 from Turnu (180k) if he can average 26kph for the next 7hours. Could be close

edit: failed at maths, 80k in 3.5 hours is make, not miss

What would be the potential outcome for the borrowed cash yesterday, if it is classed as outside assistance or two riders working together? Just a time penalty or is it big enough to be disqualification for both UB and CS?

DQ would be massively harsh I would have thought.

With no overnight ferries there will be bunch of riders piling up to take the first morning one and then sprint it to the finish, especially more down the pack.. mixed feelings about that

Yes. Fingers crossed the ferries run reasonably on schedule and that bad luck doesn’t come into it. Like imagine you get to a ferry crossing in time but then the ferry has a mechanical problem that puts it out of service for a day or the boat captain is sick and there is no replacement available.

Yeah, doesn’t feel like quite the way (though not unprecedented? Do I remember ferries being involved near an Istanbul finish?)

Will be interesting to see how it ends up, particularly for late night arrivals. On one hand, getting there early for a ferry means more time off the bike resting. But on the other, pacing the run-in would also be good I guess.

Dunno about Istanbul but there was certainly a ferry to Cannakale in 2016. But the finish time was taken from the arrival at the ferry port, not the city (although speak to @frank9755 about that).

For TransAm about 2 days out from the ferry I'd be working out my average speeds and trying to work out if I'd be getting there during the day. Then making a call if I should speed up to ensure day crossing or accept it won't happen and plan to sleep there.

True, genuinely wondering about the penalty and not trying to underplay either rider, they have both ridden amazing.

What's going on with Mark Hugaerts, cap 89?

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That’s the feller I was thinking of

Riding home?

James Houston #132 on his Brompton beginning the climb up to CP2. He seems in good spirits and is making good progress all things considered.

I guess... though he isn't showing as DNF (yet).

I tweeted them about him.

It's looking quite tight for Christoph to make the ferry. 38km in 100 minutes. If he's averaging 25km/h then the 100 minutes gives him 41.6km.
Oh and streetview shows the last section to be partially cobbled just for the extra lols