Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

Thursday morning update

127 Andreas Thier

78 km from the end. Moving already. Should finish in a few hours.

130 David Coulson

824 km to go. Not yet underway today.

Pt 1 of Josh's write up: http://www.huntbikewheels.com/blogs/news/56768835-transcontinental-race-2015-josh-ibbett-s-race-summary-pt1

Awesome stuff. Great read.

I heard a Galipoli finish which would shorten it and probably make the run into Turkey less dangerous and monotonous however it doesn't sound nearly as cool as Istanbul in terms of race title and city.

It'd be cool to see a checkpoint in Austria, you'd probably get more Alps, Germany and it would shorten/end the Po Valley.

Another thing I heard but this may have been entirely rumour, sparked partly by Alleagert, was the idea of running the race from Gibraltar to St. Petersburg although it would probably be too long.

Andreas Thier has 44 km to go....

He's an animal.

How is Emily, by the way? Is she recovered? Hope it was nothing serious.

Bit bemused by the route that David Coulon is taking after 26, almost 27, days of riding. He seems to be heading further north than i would expect. Most others cut down through Albania and Macedonia to the coast of Greece, thus providing a less hilly route to the end point.

Can anyone cast light on his game plan?

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Look at everyone elses routes. Looks like quite a few followed that route.

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Could do Gibraltar Rock to Gdansk with controls in Andorra and the Timmeljoch. St Petersberg places a lot of dependence on visas and border passage into Russia which can be uneven at best and may prohibit some competitors.

uneven at best

and a long bureaucratic papyrus game

Thank you for that. I hadn't seen that view before. Once again my concerns about David were premature!

Andreas Thier is now only 25 km from the end,.

The "T" button at the top of the window loads all tracks... it sometimes takes a few moments to load but it's my favourite view.

If i could download the data I'd be tempted to do some statistical analysis of which routes riders took and why.

I saw Emily in Istanbul, she's fine or at least that is what she lead me to believe. Even rode on for a day or two after scratching. Such a shame as she was bossing it!

I wish I had noticed that before. It would be interesting to compare routes and results. Clearly the ferry route was a major benefit both in terms of distance and climbing as well as offering a decent night's sleep.

It might be to avoid Kosovo, since you can't go from Kosovo into Serbia without having gone into Serbia first.

He's taking the 'kristoff' route, the route I planned to take.

Hang on - @skinny is now riding back the other way!?

o_O

Glad you haven't fallen out of love with cycling.

Thanks, Neil. Yes, shame she had to pull out, but glad to hear she's OK.

Interesting. Presumably therefore it should be the faster race route but given the time he has taken so far, a scenic coastal route with less climbing might have been expected.

She has been tweeting support for Peta McSharry in the PBP. Peta finished a few hours ago.

I've ridden back the race route that way. It's shit. I wouldn't want to race it, the roads are terrible. But touring, it's great!

So yeah, if I were him I'd have gone the coast way.

And yeah I'm riding back. Only to Croatia.

Andreas Thier is now on the final descent into Istanbul. 11 km to go.

Road surfaces. That is the key. All the planning one can do using Google Street View and staring at contours cann0t prepare you for atrocious road surfaces. When we rode the length of Italy last year, the poor road surfaces in the south were probably the worst single thing that we had to cope with. Energy sapping at best, at worst they buckled wheels, caused punctures and threw cyclists off their bikes. They took the joy out of descending and, on one occasion, ought really to have prompted a lengthy detour.

Only

Lozzles.

Have fun!

Andreas Thier is there! Just under 27 days. Chapeau!

Now it is only David Coulon out on the road. I suspect he will be another week at least.