Transcontinental Race No. 5 - TCR5 - #TCRN05 - 2017

To Transfagarasan CP 4 (only put name in, but looks like parcours is in there):

Björn:
960 km 37h 24m at 25,6 km/h 10 250 m climbing and 8 320 downhill
https://www.komoot.de/plan/tour/cCAkQBBoKCMS8jBEQ0pP2LRoJCLyajgIQkPF7Gg4IlvahBBCBnrMDKILFEA/@45.7454853,24.6018219,10z

Skinny

1,019 km 39h19m at 25.9 km/h 10,640 m climbing and 8,790 m downhill

https://www.komoot.com/plan/tour/cCAkQBBoKCODLkhEQsK6kLRoKCKCLiAIQstbNARoOCJb2oQQQgZ6zAyiCxRA/@45.6032490,24.6137070,14z

This should be the same route from CP 3 to CP4 I guess.

^ So looks like Skinny needs to find 2hrs, either less sleep or more speed?

Exactly, I can ride a long time (only started any serious distance last year) but with average speeds that look very different...

And to answer @tommmmmmm s question: definitely maybe yes!

I don't have a clue if I stand any chance to be just moderately fast at this kind of thing, but riding far is just amazing.
Motivated by dotwatching last year I tried to do the local brevet series here in Berlin this year.
Didn't finish the 600, so the plan of riding Audaxeurs Randonneurs Allemagnes 25th anniversary event in September (Paris to hamburg) is out of the window due to not being a super randonneur.
Was not very motivated for the 600 to begin with (7 in the morning start time is not my thing to begin with), then my riding buddy ate a fish sandwich with foreseeable consequences. We also have a problem being nicotine addicts which means a lot of bad things, but also more breaks. And nothing makes you slower than breaks.
But what broke our spirit was seeing the crashed recumbent of a fellow rider 300km in.
Policeman at the scene told us that the rider was likely to die (not true, he's well as far as I know).
But seeing what looked like the result of someone trying to overtake to closely really broke our spirit.
We continued to 400 and then did some 60kms of MTBing to the nearest train station.

The deaths in recent events really hit me, and I don't really feel like busy roads.

My plan is Bikepacking Trans Germany next year because its convenient and then take it from there.

There are way more than 2 hours to be gained somewhere in the race!

Komoot is amazing, but as skinny says here( Thanks @Tonts, missed that!) there is way more to a route like access to food etc which an online planner wont do for you.

What I am intrigued by right now is weather, and to plan accordingly. Have different routes that make sense and then pick the one where wind is less frontal etc.
I think that waiting out the bad weather was a very smart move by everyone who did it for example.

And:

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Ian To's routing away from skinny's path and up to Bjorn's in a diagonal seems to have led him to drop a place to Jonas Goy and lose some of his footing in the race. Jonas Goy looks fast today also.

Succinct and powerful message (the comment too)

stumbled across this today and found another gear

I can imagine the surge of emotionally charged energy coursing through the muscles; the head lowering, the hands tightening, the lungs readying themselves with a cavernous intake of mountain air. Calfs glistening with sweat, they immediately strain with new found energy firing through them. The memory of Mike powering that extra push.

That trans Germany bikepacking thing looks amazing.

Very much this ^

looks like skinny is having a rest at the border, wonder if Bjorn can make it to CP3 without sleeping?

Nice to see Stephane has ridden into the top ten

Lenhard didn't take the road I expected him to take. I think he'll still be first at CP3, though.

I've been watching Skinny make steady progress while Bjorn had a kip.

But just as I'm thinking of doing the same, he's set off again.

I'll give it another half hour...

Hippy's also been burning the midnight oil, but looks to have pulled over now.

His tracker seems to be updating erratically though.

Due to a large mass blocking the signal perhaps...

Looks like they both found a 24hr garage at almost the same time!

Hippy stopped long enough for a pint, whereas Skinny was there just long enough to grab a six-pack.

Dalgas talking about the lack of sleep (10 hours since race start) and commenting on that Bjorn will receive tailwind after the climb.

Goy and To are making the top two battle come back to a top four battle.

Nice post on the TCR fb group with a story of Frank with some cool pics. Looks tough!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Transcontinental.en/permalink/1576195395764463/

Where the fuck is Ian To off to this morning though?

Ian To seems to have ridden much further than anyone else

Has @skinny not won this yet?

It looks like Ian To is trying to outflank the Lower Tatras and get a flatter ride in, but looks longer.
He also slept shorter than the leaders last night and stole 60km on them.
Squaredisk is right- Goy and To still very much in it. Goy was the fastest rider yesterday, slightly faster than Skinny.
Skinny is behind Bjorn because he stopped for the storm.
Goy is behind them both because he stopped for 12 hours at CP1 debating whether to abandon
To is behind them because he seems to be going the long way round!
It is still wide open.

Uh oh

https://mobile.twitter.com/firsthippy/status/892636977266294784

Actually, this is what I shoudl have posted, Ian To's left hook

Bjorn taking a bit of a u-turn??

Bjorn looks like he;s just made a wrong turn and had to back track. Lost a bit of time.