Transcontinental Race (London - Istanbul) - #TCRNo4

Go Skinny!
This is keeping me awake at work. Great effort.

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Ha, true say @cliveo - first and last thing I'm doing every day!... And obviously lots throughout the day too.

Is there anyone to be a checkpoint at 4 yet?

Nope, but there doesn't need to be. The brevet card can be stamped by the restaurant half way up the climb (which is what people arriving after 5th will have to do as the car will move on to Istanbul).

I'm much more comfortable checking Skinny's progress this morning,
racing on fast but traffic heavy roads half asleep,
is some task.
The chase is on.

Emily Chappell seems to be coming up the field as well.

It's been a few days since I checked this thread. Is Lee Pearce now in the lead with Skinny third? Slightly confused by the tracking page now...

This is my favourite thread right now.

Lee looks like he's going to go to control 4 (Lovcen) before going to control 3 (Vukovar). Perfectly within the rules, but it's a longer route (I'll work out roughly how much longer in a few mins.)

@skinny is No.1 in our hearts!

Keep it up mate! Hope your neck gets better soon!

(All distances approximate and guesswork on the roads used - I tried to avoid motorways)

Interesting...

Going to Lovcen before Vukovar using the Ancona/Split ferry:-

Rivoli to Ancona: 570km
Split to Lovcen: 350km
Lovcen to Vukovar: 500km
Vukovar to Istanbul: 1100km
Total: 2520km + 11h ferry

Usual route of Vukovar/Lovcen/Istanbul (via Albania and Greece).

Rivoli to Vukovar: 1100km
Vukovar to Lovcen: 500km
Lovcen to Istanbul (via typical route through Greece): 1250km
Total: 2850km

So you actually save 330km by doing Ancona/Split/Lovcen/Vukovar/Istanbul.

Be interesting to see if Lee is fast enough to make it work. The last 600km or so of the Greek route is quite flat, it's just getting through the rest of Montenegro and Albania/FYROM and properly into Greece which is hilly.

I hope they use the same roads to go between Lovcen and Vukovar so they see each other going the opposite way. They'll probably be able to smell each other a few minutes before they actually see each other.

[EDIT] Of course, Josh is 450km from Control 3, so ~1700km from the finish. Lee is 300km to Lovcen, so ~1900km from the finish, and Lee took almost a day longer to get to Control #2 (3d7h compared to 2d10h, or 2d7h of Skinny).

So you actually save 330km by doing Ancona/Split/Lovcen/Vukovar/Istanbul.

And get an 11 hour sleep in the bag to boot.

Yup, and looks like he timed it quite well. ~14h from stopping for the ferry to starting again.

Just checked times Josh took 4h30 to reach the control,
from where Skinny is now,
including 15 min stop.
So Skinny should reach the control well before 4.30pm,
smelling nice.

Yep, thumbs up from me as well.

#ruNotEntertained

Looks like a whole slew of people are heading down the middle of Croatia via Zagreb rather than hugging the Hungarian border like skinny and josh.

Is one route superior to the other?

Is one route superior to the other?

So many factors and variables to consider (types/busyness of roads, hills, facilities en route, etc) that it'd be impossible to say which is better let alone best.

Fair points.

Has Lee gone for lunch with a nice view in Makarska? 3 hour stop.

Skinny should be at Control 3 in the next 5 minutes.

Seems to be a glitch in the distance to next control point, 2 + 75 showing distance to ctrl point and not 4.

I was too wondering why it hasn't registered Josh as having been to control 3.

Considering Skinnys tweets yesterday, he seems to be averaging a solid pace again today, inspiring stuff.

I just want to leave my desk and go ride my bike.

I was too wondering why it hasn't registered Josh as having been to control 3.

Trackleaders is a bit shit.

The parallels with Teletext continue...

I have literally no idea how they are keeping this up. It's is incredible and inspiring.
Go skinny. Go Leo. Go Emily! Go bananaskid

Heh.

Josh stopped at Vukovar for 2 hours. If Skinny did a stamp-and-go then he'd be 4 hours behind Josh.