Transcontinental Race No. 7 - TCR7 - #TCRN07 - 2019

Planning next season. All I've heard about next year's TCR is that it will be "interesting".

Who's contemplating racing? Who's hacked their servers and can post details? When is the official info coming out?

I'm planning to apply. How long is the application stuff usually?
Heard it opens in November which is less than ideal timing for me...

No idea. Am not following the FB group any more as too much irrelevant stuff.
Am virtually certain not to be riding (sob!) but will most likely volunteer to dot watch, or maybe go to the start - depending on where it is.

Including the bootcamp, full medical, psyche evaluation and 2 week solitary confinement?

i've heard they are looking do something a bit different - last year was relatively 'normal' to establish continuity after Mike's death.

Not sure what this entails - more gravel? New territory (Iberian peninsula?)

eBikes? It's the future I've heard.

Couple of hours usually. It's not too arduous. Good luck.

The comedown after two weeks is pretty rotten though.

Ha that sounds like what I will be doing around the time entry opens!

Ah ok cool, thanks.

Planning on applying, yeah - does anyone know how long they tend to keep applications open for?

Two weeks

Sure would be lovely to race TCR again, but then again could also do some other race. Would be interested to do something on another continent to see something new. But that would often be more expensive and require more time. And TCR has great spirit and is well organised. Though I need to look more in to what else there is. That IncaDivide looks nice/mental too. Or I could plan some solo adventure, though I do like racing.

I'm expecting big changes to the TCR #7. Think they're gonna shake a few things up like maybe where it starts and finishes.

The start and finish are great though so that would be a bit of a pity but change could also provide something even better.

Yeah, but the first 400km of this years race was essentially the same as last. The final parcours is also very well known by anyone who's done the last two years, and the roads through those Balkan countries to get there are also well routed. Geraardsbergen is a classic location, but it does limit things somewhat at the start. Europe is bigger - let's play with it a bit more

I'd heard the plan was to leave geraadsbergen but it would /will be a shame. The reason the first stage of this year's race was similar to last year was choice of first control.
Also, there are other ways to approach meteora so the parcours could be changed.
And the yugoslav countries are great riding so shame to not use them. Serbia has hardly been touched. And the experiment with using Romania instead was not a success.
If it were me I'd stick with gb, head in a different direction for the first stage (north/east) but move the finish. But it's not so will be interesting to see what the route, start and finish are!

~400k out of 4000 isn't bad. I used different roads this year compared to last year for stage 1 anyway. It's not like racers are bored of the first stage of the race is it? I mean, people happily go out every weekend and ride/race the same road(s) and this is once-yearly. If it's keeping dotwatchers engaged then it's still unpredictable - look at some of the early Garminfails this year. As Frank says, the first CP was quite close to last year's first one so that made it easier for anyone who raced last year, but they may have done what I did and route differently anyway, because why not? Not saying it can't be better but GB and Meteora are both cool start.finish points.

It's never really gone into NL or central Germany.

Could it head to Spain for CP1? Would they make a first stage that long?

Could go straight towards Poland too.

But then if they did change the start it could go anywhere and that'd be cool too.

Edit: removed stuff about transpyranees as there's a thread over here https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/326926/

I'm planning on applying for next year, making it through without a single puncture makes me feel like I have some unfinished business and need to race it a bit harder.

Entries are open tomorrow.

https://www.transcontinental.cc/tcrno7-1/

So, so tempted, but PBP.

PBP doesn't start until the 18th, right? I might do both.

The checkpoints are made public. Start in the east, finish in the west.

Quick overview of the locations on the map:

ooooooooooo flatish.

One for Hippy. Back Skinny to do the treble tho.