*aside – this thread is about road bikes. Does is belong on the bike forum or the chat forum? Never can work that out…

I’ve got the bug again. Road mainly but after spending the best part of a decade only playing lipservice to being a cyclist it’s blooming marvellous. Like everything I do it’s all or nothing and it’s great to be in all mode once more.

The TCR is something I can see myself wanting to do, or at the very least aspiring to do. There is still something a bit competitive about it but it’s also about adventure,lots of prior planning, seeing a bit of the world and pushing/hurting yourself. Sounds spot on to me.

How do you start though? Are there shorter events to get you started? Is there a website where such things can be found? My google skills appear to be weak on this one. Obvious there are audax or randonee but not sure what else.

For road I’d look at Audax and brevets. For off-road you’d be looking at ITTs (independent Time Trials) for which http://selfsupporteduk.net/ is the UK listing.

Events/races like the TCR are a mixture of the two: checkpoints and pacing from the audax side along with bivvying and the self supported aspect of ITTs. So while you could move up through one or the other “system” knowing parts of both would help.

Along with that you need to be able to look after yourself for day after day on the bike.

Lots of lists about if you Google “bike packing races” or “Ulta cycling races”.

E.g. https://bikepacking.com/events/category/bikepacking-races/

I can recommend the Trans Pyrenees (TPR) if you like climbing. Same organisers as TCR, same ethos but shorter distance (~1600-1700km in 7 days, 30,000m+ of climbing), also has the advantage / disadvantage that it’s later in the year so more time to get fit but also less light, colder weather.

https://www.theracingcollective.com/#

Some good stuff here if you are just starting out

Check out Pan Celtic Race , there’s a long and short route.

https://www.transalbarace.com/

The Wild Atlantic Way ride too – Dublin to Cork (going anti-clockwise!)
I think there’s now a shorter version of that, starting right up in the north of Ireland so it’s a sort of Irish End-to-End.

Whitstone’s advice is sound. Audax is a good place to get to grips with 2-3 day rides and pacing. Just solo touring with an eye on the clock would be good, race against time and understand your average speeds before racing against others. Or, just jump right in and sign up to something that fires you up to learn fast.

Thanks.

The Trans Alba looks good but full and also annoyingly about 10 days before my leave window opens. It goes within half a mile of my new house which would be cool.

Will look up the wild Atlantic way too. But yes some Audax and some DIY events would make sense. It’s appears you can do a diy entry to Audax UK too. Plan was to do exactly that building up to a shorter event then a crack at something like the tcr in 2021 or 2022.

Btw £285 for the Trans Alba – that’s about twice the price of full on TCR!

A couple of mates did the inaugural ‘All Points North’ earlier this year, that would be a 3/4 day way in to this sort of thing.

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There’s no need to enter events if you are viewing them as “training” for the TCR, just get out and ride the routes when you can. You’ll still be able to compare your time with the racers (allowing for variation due to weather etc). That’ll let you practice pacing, multi-day riding, kit selection and develop your overnighting.