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Counldn't see a thread out this yet.
This starts next Friday/Saturday (24/25 July) at midnight from the top of the Muur in Geraardsbergen in Belgium going all the way to Istanbul via four checkpoints (Mont Ventoux, Strada Dell Assietta, Vukovar and Mt Lovcen)
The trackleaders site is up [url= http://trackleaders.com/transconrace15 ]http://trackleaders.com/transconrace15[/url] ready.
I'll be racing/riding number #103. It's my first time doing anything like this so very excited and just hoping my knees don't snap!
I'm as well. Number 183 in the pairs with my wife. Somewhere in the region of 2600 miles and approx 140000 feet of climbing. This is an unsupported race with no set route. If there's any interest, I'll try to post updates on here when I can. Also you can follow me on Twitter @petetallboymtb
See you there. Final kit test tomorrow round the Peaks.
I'll be watching the race with interest. Good luck to both of you.
Keep it steady!
Having a few days off the bike at the moment. We'll be heading to London on Wednesday for the registration then eurostar to Brussels on Thursday. This means I should have time on Friday morning for a quick spin to check the start of my planned route.
Good luck!
Buffet breakfast attacked now just the wait to the start. Weather does not look good for tonight's start. The Muur should be interesting in torrential rain, darkness, all the bags and 200 other racers!
Bit of an update. Unfortunately the OP dropped out with knee issues about 5 days. We (I was in pairs with my wife) started with 200 others on the muur at geraardsbergen in the dry at midnight. Heavy rain and wind at dawn but we rode on til evening completing 183 miles to a campsite in vitry le François. Next day 135 miles to Dijon, setting up camp in the rain. Day 3 was another 135 down the rhone valley to lyon. No camping available so stopped at a hotel. Carried on down the valley the next day to pierrelette where we turned out of the valley to climb towards control 1 at Mt Ventoux. Riding through the vineyards in the setting sun was amazing. We arrived at Bedoin having done another 145 miles. Early start up ventoux the next morning which was hard work especially with a fully laden bike. Of the top we dropped down to sault and then the meouge gorge. We camped here for the night. It was a bit of a short day but the climbing and the heat had taken its toll. Next day was along a valley up to Briancon in the alps. We then climbed up the balcony road to montgenevre then over the border to Italy. Another drop to Cesana meant a huge climb up to control 2 at Sestriere.
The next morning was a climb over the strada dell'assietta, an old military road leading to the colle dell finestre. This was the gravel second on this year's giro d'italia. This was fantastic riding and I'd quite happily have stayed here for weeks. After fighting our way through Turin we headed east across the flat land of the po valley. A combination of lunatic driving,heavy traffic and poor road surfaces started to get us down. We were pleased to eventually cross in to Slovenia. We went cross country on back roads. We were really impressed with Slovenia, beautiful clean countryside and welcoming people.
Croatia was next and we again stuck to the direct route across country on quiet roads. As we got further east there were reminders of the Balkans war with abandoned villages and lots of signs warning of landmines! We eventually got to control 3 at vukovar.
Next we headed south west out of croatia and into Bosnia Herzegovina. The traffic here was horrendous. Another day of this after stopping at a dodgy hotel led to our decision to scratch from the race. So many near misses from big trucks and coaches had broken us.
I think our inexperience cost us in the end. We took a small tent between us, which was great through France, but lack of campsites meant too many hotels which in turn cost us too much time. Bivvy bags should've been the way to go. We still rode about 1800 miles in 2 weeks and I'm impressed my wife managed this . Not many 45 year old women would do it.
The race was won by mountain biker Josh ibbett in a ludicrous 10 days for the 2600 mile route.
Top write up... you should be proud of both of you !
Entries open for TCR 2016 tomorrow evening, with the checkpoints announced today....
Get a week to register this time so hopefully will stop the website crashing like last time. Didn't think you were doing it next year shuhockey? Doing the highlands and islands audax I thought.
Yeah not doing it, some early calc's people have done say 70km of height gain! Signed up for the highlands audax. May try for transam 2017!
More climbing but less distance. All new checkpoints apart from the start as well. I'll put my application in and see. If I don't get a place, I'll do the highlands and islands audax instead, which will still be a great ride to do.