Transcontinental No4 2016

Let me start by saying that Nick is not riding this race! But ... he may in the future, if a lot of different things all fall into place. Never say never and all that.

Because it is unsupported, there is a lot of prep work. Because you choose your own route, with stop offs at mandatory control points, there is a lot of routing to be done. Isn't it convenient that I love staring at maps and routing? So we thought, the only way to get a good idea of how my route would compare to others, is to route the living daylights out of it, and then see if any riders follow my route, or any portion of it, and compare my route to theirs.

It took me 10 days ... 14-18 hour days, but I then had a route that will take a lot beating. However, because of the recent coup attempt in Turkey, there is now going to be an emergency alternative finish announced, so I will have to do a route to that place too, just in case. I expect that the finish will still be as planned in Çanakkale, well at least I hope it will be. 

 
The TCR competitors are all quite closed lipped about their routes, but what I can see from the various routes where people have given the total distance and total elevation of their routes, mine is about 100km shorter, and about 7000m less elevation than the best route I've seen mentioned. Can't wait for the race to take place so that I can see how I do.
We are going to have a little holiday in Belgium, and go to the start, and do a little volunteer helping out at the start.

Frustratingly, I can't make it work if I embed these videos, but please please click on the links and watch them. Brilliant!! There are subtitles, so a little reading

What is TCR

TCR Routing

We are also going to be popping off to Belgium for a few days for the start of this year's TCR.  There is no better way to see what something is about than to go and immerse yourself in it for a few days.  I shall be helping at registration and the start, while Nick does a bit of cycling on the Belgian roads in the area, and then we shall have a couple days of just mooching about.

I am stressing just a little about the ridiculously long delays for the Port of Dover today though, I do hope they have the backlog cleared before we need to hop aboard our ferry!!  7-12 hours of queuing in a vehicle is so way over the top it isn't worth thinking about!

For the 'real' info on TCR, have a look at their website ...