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

The Allens are now well onto the parcours and have just 44 Trackleaders km to go. Another couple of hours. 18:00 local time or shortly thereafter.

Up to the radio mast and roll on in.
I think it’s an amazing achievement

Yay. They finished 28 minutes ago. The TCR is over.

An amazing race and a wonderful ride by the 250s showing us all that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Totally in awe.

The final blue dots are bouncing. Congratulations Els De Clercq and Marie Lou Vanassche!

Awesome!

Now to persuade Irene.

She has not been on a bike since she went over the handlebars six years ago and spent £5,000 on reconstructive dental surgery.

Oh shit. I had no idea. :(

@rj @hippy @frank9755 @PBoynton @Samuli

How’s everyone readjusting post race?
I’ve still not bad time to complete my write up.

I found that my tolerance for alcohol is fucked after spending almost an entire day being sick after a night out. Other than that, I'm just as fucked as before the race.

After chat with physio I'm thinking I'm going to try and start Transiberica (assuming I can sort flights out) but be ready to pull the bail cord if my knee gives me any grief. She's worried with the sudden climbing load I'm damaging the cartilage and it could be much longer term damage.

I doubt I will write it up even though I have a note to do so. I've not even looked at the race data yet or thrown it on Stava to see where I got lost, etc.

@frank9755 Got some Catalyst pedals sitting on my desk now and as much as I'd love to test them I think changing pedaling system a week before a 3600k race is probably going to lead to more problems than it solves.

I think I can get away with a 42T on the back but presume I'll need a Wolf Tooth if I want to run 46T even with the shadow RD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRHgg_y1Bj0

I am okay. Pretty gutted I wasnt able to finish again. Trying to think of solutions to shermers neck issues. How are you? Well done on finishing by the way!

How much training do you do on the bike you race on?
Have you done any neck/shoulder/back strength work?
Do you wear glasses? How often would you change position or stretch during?

I did about 9,400km between Jan and the race start on the same bike.

I have been doing sone work with physios as well as using kettlebells and a resistance band. Going to try to increase the heaviness of weights.

I wore contact lenses and Oakley jawbreakers.

I would change position quite often like between tri bars and hoods and was not on the tribars that much. I probably didn’t stretch as much as I could have though.

How many times have you attempted it?
I’m ok lots of readjustment required my end!!

Rather embarrassingly it is the third time!

Do you look out the top of your eyes? How much does your helmet weigh (ooh nurse)? Do you wear a cap? Do you use a helmet light?

Sounds like you're doing lots of what I'd try already but there must be something that can do done to sort it.

Were the strength exercises specific to your neck or just overall body strength?

How much were you sleeping? Have you explained your problem to a bike fitter to see if they can work to reduce the weight your neck is holding?

Nothing to be embarrassed about. Also nothing to be embarrassed by if it’s not for you.
What happened in the first few days?
Edit: think you may have told me but I was trying rather desperately to keep my show on the road.

Oakley jawbreakers.

Full frame aren't they? I hate full frame sunglasses because the frame is always where you should be looking when on aerobars (I've assumed you're using aerobars?)

Thanks for your advice.

I suspect I probably do look out of the top of my eyes. Might this contribute to it? I did wear the race cap but the peak was up most of the time unless the sun was especially bright. Presumably you mention this because with peak down it makes you hinge your neck.

Helmet weighs 280g. I have a helmet light mount but only attach the light when stopped and setting up bivy stuff.

Some exercises were specific to neck, others for overall body strength.

I slept around five hours a night, three on one occasion but I had little or no sleep the night before the race for sone reason!

I have had a bike fit which mainly related to shortening the stem, they didn’t go into reducing the weight my head was holding.

First few days were fine. Quite hard but, you know, it is supposed to be!

Yes, they are but I felt they were high enough that this was not a problem.

For reference I wear jawbreakers. I also have 50mm risers on my aero bars.
My helmet is about 220g. I only slept in a bed.

Counter is you’d done a lot more miles than me before the start I hadn’t done that much specific stuff. I do think lifting/ tackling a 3 year old is fairly good core training mind haha

It was hard from the start certainly. What were your daily distances vs planned?

I averaged I think around 230km a day so too low really. I wanted to do 280km to 300km. I was planning to increase the mileage by starting around 4am so I could do around 150km before it became really hot which I think was a good plan but unfortunately I didn't get to implement it.

Actually 250km over first 5 days before neck issues set in so not fantastic but not terrible either.