Transcontinental Race No. 6 - TCR6 - #TCRN06 - 2018

What kind of sleeping bag is that? Did you have a mat / did it help?

Thanks for the Top Tips too

Sleeping pads/mats definitely help.
I have plenty of my own insulation so I can get away with a bag cover no bag.
Some people use just a bag (Lael in TABR), others will use both and a silk liner.
It depends how you feel the cold and how much you plan to sleep outside.

Perfect, I will stick with the mat + bivvy + lightweight bag combo and attempt the world record of hot many jerseys can be worn at the same time if it starts getting too cold.

Insurance. Got a couple of quotes and amIrite in thinking that it's just Travel Insurance with cover for cycle racing (sports and activities level 4) that also covers emergency extraction and repatriation that I need?
To be clear, I'm just looking for whatever the minimum is to appease the organisers, got lots of other death / income covers through work. Does £66.00 (single event European cover) for a suave sophisticated but incredibly cheap 40yo sound about right?

I'm sure I paid less than that. How long duration did you cover?

3 weeks (from when I leave the UK till when I return)

I used ETA, definitely less than that. And they are very Pro cycling

Another tip, if you have to sleep when it is cold, better to go late in the night if you can so the sun is up and it is starting to warm when you get up.

Sounds expensive. I paid that and I had to shop around.

Check eta. They’re ethical and cheap.

Cheers, will give them a call.

Just picked up some clip on aero bars. How far apart does everyone have them set up? As in how much space in between them .

86 days to go!

I suppose it depends on what luggage you'll be carrying on the bars and how comfortable you find them. Start wide and gradually narrow for aero gainz?

Except some people test faster wider because the more relaxed shoulders allow for a lower head and/or their arm interaction with their thighs might be more betterer.

#aeroburn

Looking forward to seeing the starting list.
Looks like Stephane is tagging TCRNO6 is all his Instagram pics. Wonder if an IPWR in the legs will be a help or hindrance ?

I finished 20th and Mr Wacker wasn't too far behind after doing TABR a month earlier.
Stephane will have had ~4 months in between. One month is definitely not enough, four and you can probably be pretty competitive.

it depends is the answer.

bjorn destroyed TAW, then lit up TCR, and that was 6ish weeks between.

Bjorn is a beast. TAW starting line up looks amazing. Be good to get some more of those insight vids skinny if you have time!

Be good to get some more of those insight vids skinny if you have time!

+1

Should be ok by June 7st. Last exam is 28th May.

The problem with ultra racing is we don’t have enough data to really make statements like this.

Björn did fantastically well on both races. But had he not taken part in the TAW he may have won TCR or perhaps TAW was good preparation and he’d have done worse.

@hippy when you did TCR after TABR did you feel better or worse than when you did the TCR the first time? Despite the positions both of you and Michael’s average distances per day didn’t change much that much (less by about 5%). This could have easily been down to the heat in ‘17, although ‘16 was a relatively hillier route.

Also, what the hell did you do in ‘16 - you rode around 200km more than everybody else?

Björn did fantastically well on both races. But had he not taken part in the TAW he may have won TCR or perhaps TAW was good preparation and he’d have done worse.

I said to him I think it would have been a lot closer. I think he faded in the later part due to accrued fatigue.
But even data collected is useless, as everyone body is different, so finding a trend would be pointless.

There are definitely lots of problems with collecting data, especially at this stage when the sample size is relatively small. But if we only consider racers who have done it more than once, so we can omit any individual-level differences to some extent, then we could get more accurate predictions. Power data and accurate moving time and distances would be useful

If you took out my mechanical issues in TCR I'd probably have knocked 12-24hrs off my second TCRs duration. But that was more down to experience. I was definitely fresher than Wacker in that TABR/TCR double because he'd had a faster TABR and I don't think his head was in the game as much for TCR whereas I was feeling disappointed with a shit TABR and thought I could push on a bit in TCR. I did a lot more bivvying so probably saved money and time but at the expense of better quality sleep which may have been the reason behind me not fixing my front wheel when I had the chance and (in hindsight) pushing on with it in its state.

In 2016 I took the hippy detour down south, adding 120k to remove 4500m climbing oh and got lost a lot.

I think it depends how hard the first event is. TAW is only 1/2 TCR distance and 1/3 TABR so mentally probably not as taxing, even if it's physically harder. You recover physically quicker if you're already doing lots of miles (well I do, dunno about these lazy fuckers that only do 6hr rides).

TAW is only 1/2 TCR distance

Yeah 6 days, V 18 for tabr.

But would you accrue bigger sleep debt in TAW, could be that it takes longer to recover from...

Yep. Too many variables. My durations are about the same for both TCRs but the second one was definitely "better" due to experience, even with TABR fatigue, just got fuxxored with mechanicals again. But if TABR went better I might not've even made the TCR start line, who knows. TCR is basically a Tour after TABR, I just happen to tour a lot faster than most. ;)