Ultracycling

NC 4000 seems to have pretty much sold out on launch.
They are asking for €400, so a bit cheaper than TCR.

It was 450 ish last year.

TCR route does look cool, but the start is a bit of a chore to get too. And finish home from.

Not publicly.

It looks long.

Missus hasn't committed to a pair.

O wow, didn't notice it had could gone up to that.

he start is a bit of a chore to get too

Yeah no easy option really if not wanting to fly

How many people will travel not by plane to both the start and from the end do you think? Train from Constanta to UK doesn't sound much fun on top of 4500km.

Just had a quick look at the route. I've ridden the parcours at CP5, from Kruje going towards Burrel. I did it the other direction, 15 years ago, on a Super Galaxy with panniers and touring load. I remember that the panniers were helpful in maintaining traction when standing to climb - as most of it was unsurfaced then. You did get the odd car going along it though, so it was all rideable, but still a hard climb. Hot and sunny on the climb but nice, shady forest at the top. Great views looking west towards / beyond Burrel.

Not sure that nostalgia for that parcours is enough to make me enter, though!

A lot fewer than if they started in Belgium!

Maybe 80% of their riders come from between Manchester and Vienna and Geraadsbergen is accessible without flying for most of them. I know they have to keep it interesting by changing things but there is a conflict between that and all the stuff they say about carbon footprint.

Getting back to the UK from further east than Croatia or Poland by land is always going to take 2-3 days though.

That's on top of nearly 2+ weeks off work plus however you get to Santiago De Compostela - if you were coming from the UK I don't think that's a direct flight, or it's the long ferry to Bilbao + some overland jazz.

Just for a laugh I looked it up on the interrail site and it takes 22-23 hours to get from Paris to Santiago by train, 3 departures a day, 3 changes.

Probably the best way from London would be to get the sleeper from Paris to Toulouse, leaving at 21:40, which gets you to Santiago at 20:32 the next day, via Narbonne and Madrid.

To catch that you would need to get the 2:30pm Eurostar, or first train to Dover and a ferry if you don't want to take your fork out.

It's not impossible, but the route planning is probably harder than for the race, and the additional time makes it impractical for most people.

Bilbao/Santander - Santiago looks like 9-10 hours, 1-2 changes, so not easy either, probably longer door-to-door.

There are direct flights from Gatwick and Stansted.

https://www.seat61.com/ferry-to-spain.htm
https://www.seat61.com/Spain.htm#london-to-santiago-de-compostela-vigo-coruna-by-train
but that's without your bike...

Yeah pretty much what @frank9755 said.
Spain start seems cool but that particular area seems a real pain to get to for the vast majority of their usual entrants. I suspect flying to the start is less attractive than flying from the finish, certainly would be for me

At the launch Andrew Philips did say something about some sorr of transport they were thinking of organising at start and finish. Wizz fly direct from London to Constanta.

but that's without your bike...

Trying to plan / book it with bike reservations gets stupidly hard / confusing.

If you take your forks out your bike is just luggage so can do it that way.
Forks out is only strictly necessary for Eurostar, but it makes it a bit easier to fit on the luggage racks on TGV, etc.

Apparently it is easy to put bikes on buses in Spain and there is a direct one from Santander, so ferry + bus, rather than train, would be the best way there without flying.

It's easy....ish. Met a few people who'd scratched TPR back in Girona this year, who'd had to get back from places like Jaca where there's no straightforward way of putting a bike on a train.

They'd been told there was no way they were getting on one bus, only for another driver to say if the bikes were wrapped there would be no problem. One guy had basically cling filmed and bin bagged his bike and was finally let on a Spanish bus.

Depends on the bus. There's local buses in towns that have zero space for bikes but there's the longer distance/intercity type buses run by companies like Sagales, Aviva and others that will happily take a complete bike (if there's space and that's probably at a premium in summer, especially if you're anywhere near a coast)

https://www.arriva.es/en
https://www.sagales.com/en
https://www.alsa.com/en/web/bus/home

As for trains, the slower Media Distancia and Regionale will take complete bikes (that's how I got to the start of Transiberica the last time) but if you want to use the various fast trains you need to have bikes boxed/bagged/covered and they generally want them in the storage areas which differ per train.

This guy talks about Bromptons on the fast trains...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhmvI_AwxxQ

Better idea: don't scratch and if you do, scratch in a big town. :)

apparently its an Alsa bus and they allow you to take, and book spaces for, bikes. Only 4 per bus though, so not everyone would get on

Resorting to the 'this bundle of shit wrapped in cling film? oh it's just my luggage, definitely not a bike' is definitely a plan B worth trying in those scenarios.

I wonder how much it would cost roughly to hire a van/driver to go from London (or somewhere ) to santiago de compostela with bikes? There’s normally a lot of UK entrants who might be interested in something like that?

Probably very expensive as the brexit dividend / gift thats doesn’t stop giving- means you can only travel with your own bike. Travel with a van load = duties , taxes etc

Certainly been done with cling film.

I got my bike on an Austrian train from Spittal to Frankfurt when I had to scratch in 2019 by using bin bags and parcel tape. It seems to be quite widely done in Germany. Not sure if it would work in the UK though.

This is right. Not sure how strictly it is interpreted though.

A few of us from my club went to Belgium last year and one guy, who is a builder, took a couple of extra bikes in his van. Didn't have any issues. That was only two extra bikes though. At some point it will get problematic.

I travelled back from PBP years ago with a Dutch guy and he did exactly that before getting on his train from Paris. Took the wheels off, wrapped it in cling film and took off.

Ulrich travelled to Transiberica on the fast trains with his bike in garbage bags. I took the slow trains because I had time and I rode from Logrono to Bilbao whereas I think he went from Barca to Bilbao direct.