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

What an experience. Got in at about 11 last night. Was good motivation having people in front to chase in yesterday. I’ll write more in due course but thanks for all the supportive messages.

Well done!

Great stuff, planning the next one yet?

Brilliant. Been following your ig. What a battle! Well done!

Chapeau to the power of n.

Amazing Ross, I knew you’d do it. Enjoy the food and beer

Well done Ross, I have enjoyed seeing your planning at the start of the thread through to the successful execution. You should be extremely proud of yourself! Enjoyed your IG feed.

Well done, an incredible achievement.

Thanks. Your ride last year was inspirational!

Thanks everyone, very humbling experience all round.
If anyone has been watching and thinking you’d like to give it a go feel free to ask me anything. There’s a lot of experience to draw on here and wider but maybe my own circumstance and situation might be closer to where some of you are.

Also no roundel badges this year...? Or was it just too late??

Well done goat.

you can reduce the risks by making sure your kit is either recently maintained or new

battery went at the end of day 2

You're as bad as me for not listening to your own advice :P

For what it's worth my Quarq had a fresh battery and I think I remember getting a low PM warning towards the end of the race. I never finished TABR with a working PM because I never carried spare PM batteries. Quarq is much easier to swap batts than P2M.

somewhere good enough to sleep

I mean, literally the ground is fine if it's not raining. I did actually lie on a bench in the rain and then thought to myself "I can probably find a better spot just along the road a bit".

Hahaha

I carried a (crappy) lock the entire race and never took it out. Don't know why I bothered, I'd not taken it during previous races.

5* hotels :)

If you can't find shelter you keep riding. There's always something nearby.

Congrats on finishing. Mega ride!

Well in G&T, chapeau!

Congrats!

Especially give your early troubles well done man. Seeing the route on a zoomed out map brings home how ridiculous it is . Thanks for documenting as well.

How do you feel about doing it again, now it’s over?

brilliant. massive chapeau dude

You're as bad as me for not listening to your own advice :P

Sure - at least where PM batteries are concerned! I knew it was about to run out but CBA to replace it beforehand. I thought it would be something I would just quickly do on the road but actually it wasn't important to me so I didn't do it.

I wouldn't bother carrying spare coin batteries again!

The bigger possible risk I took was that I didn't bother getting my hubs serviced beforehand. I meant to but didn't get round to it. They are Dura-Ace and roll sweetly but they have done a few miles so I would ideally have taken them in to Woolsey's for a bit of TLC. They might go another 10 years with no issues, but they might not.

Both rims were pretty new. Bottom bracket was new. Entire drivetrain was new. New front inner brake cable - left outers and rear as use it less. Also brakes were new - upgrade (to cantis!). Tyres were new. Saddle and seat post pretty new.

What failed was bits of my Di2, because I crashed and smashed my front bar end shifter off. Preventative maintenance can't prevent user error.

What was not new was:
Frame
Bars (main bars, extensions were pretty new)
chainset (ie cranks and spider)
Bottle cages
Di2 setup.

Those could all fail but it is pretty rare - other than for @hippy who has to change frames more often that I change my brake blocks

Lulu Drinkwater just finished aswell