Transcontinental Race No. 8 - TCR8 - #TCRN08 - 2022

also well done, especially after reading how little you've been on the bike recently !

I thought the finish line had always closed at the end of the party. Hadn't realised it was extended in other years.
Need Chris White to do the analysis!

Anyway, if that's not the right measure, it was hard measured by km and metres, and how long past riders took this time vs previously.

A big difference is that the parcours mainly used to be a few hours, like in 2017 you went to the Transfargasan and rode up it. Now they tend to be most of a day. So instead of just riding up the Transalpina, we had to go up both ways then do 6-8 hours mountain biking to get down again.

Well done on finding food. I ended up eating the last bits out of my pockets when I got to the hotel at 2am!

I was sorry I missed the party. A good few people went down to the beach though and it was good to speak to CS a bit and get some of his thoughts. Obviously things can change but he's up for doing it next year.

finding food

Yeah didn't have much luck with that. Ended up at having to go to that corner shop and making some really sad peanut butter sandwiches...

Ah that's interesting. I got chatting to Ulrich for a bit. Seemed pretty down about it all actually and really not happy with the whole 4th parcours and ferry aspect. tbf I thought the 4th parcours were a bit ludicrous.

Ah shame! Everything closed down when I left the beach party. I had a bit of burek, half a croissant and an old energy bar I found in the bottom of my bar bag.

Everyone I spoke to said the cp4 parcours was ridiculous. I don't know what the purpose of this stuff is, is it for sponsors, for photos? All riders seem to hate it

To create extra hype for people following. "What will they do at Drumul Strategic? It could all fall apart, let's see!"

Haha

I am become Garmin, destroyer of routes.

Everyone hated that stupid walk up the dusty mountain the last time they did it in, which one was it, TCR 6? They've added more this time so either they didn't listen and you're gonna have to get used to it or it was a whoopsie.

Update on Oscar. Look like he's gone back out there.
Amazing effort at this point

1 Attachment

I mean, if you don't have to catch a flight immediately, why not? GC finish is important.

I know the guy is probably deadly tired but it's getting a bit comical. He went back out but joined the parcours halfway and did the top half, that he missed on his second try, in the other direction. Looped back around and joined the parcours again halfway.

So he had three tries but none of them were the full parcours north to south in one go. I wonder if they'll just stamp his brevet to get it over with. :)

edit Just checked, they have him as finished in the leaderboard, half an hour before GC cutoff.

TransAmer Amy Lippe has finished.

That's good. She's a good person.

i think you're right that this is the toughest TCR though, just that that can't be determined by number or %age of finishers.

I also think that riders are stronger and better prepared throughout the field, not just at the front.

They should be. Every edition provides more information on routes, even edition shows people new ways to succeed and fail. I think I made this comment earlier in the thread - improvement is constant, if not consistent.

+ 2 years of zwift.

"Other indoor training platforms are available."

Ha, yeah. Apart from two guys I saw absolutely nailing it everyone I spoke to also felt it was ridiculous. The steep sand banks were a particular highlight. 😀

Also, not one puncture the entire race!

I recently rode some of the same gravel with 50mm tyres that I'd done in NCT with 28mm. Really enjoyed it now, less so in the race. Doing this type of race I'd be inclined to use something like 40mm slicks just to make those roads actually fun and to make the whole race just hurt less. But then I still might wish the route to be more coherent and have even more of those rough roads. At least in pictures the cp4 looked really fun, on a proper bike.
I did like the Serbian 80 km gravel parcours in 2019 TCR too.

In 2019 Fiona spent 16 hours on cp 3 parcours and 8 on cp 4. I spent almost 21 hours on the cp 3 parcours as I slept there, as I think most did, which meant many spent closer to 24 hours on it. But cp 3 was on proper roads so you could cover a lot more distance, it was 164 kms. The combined length of the parcours was also more than twice as much as this year.

But yeah anyway this seemed like the hardest one yet.

Serbian 80 km gravel parcours

Wait, what? I don't even remember this.

There was a long stretch of gravel that ended with the steep part to the Besna Kobila and cp 2, I'm sure you remember the last part that made everyone walk but there was half a day of kind of easy ridable climbing on a rocky gravel road before that.

https://www.transcontinental.cc/tcrno7-cp2-1
https://www.komoot.com/tour/61898185

For some reason I thought that radio tower thing was in Bulgaria still... but the Bulgaria control was that UFO building. This is why I don't remember most of it... would you like a Dark & Stormy?

1 Attachment

Must have been beautiful in the dark :D
I did most of the gravel at Alpe d'Huez in the dark, still fun as it was pretty smooth.

Oh, now I remember it. It was mostly hard pack dirt for miles and then a steep ramp of rocky shit and then you're just walking along some goat tracks on a ridge. One man's "epic!" is another man's "oh, yeah, I forgot".