Transcontinental Race: the post mortem

This piece started whilst I was riding back through France, so apologies it’s taken so long!

The question is this; at what point did my chances, as they were,  of a quick finish end?

Was it in France? Where I rode for 180 miles with a rear tyre at 70psi, wasting time trying to find shop that might be able to sell a new pump as my valve-core had snapped inside the pump head?  The extra time and energy needed to ride that distance really drained me and I was already knackered on day 3!

Or was it before that?  Where 3 punctures before Dover meant I missed my ferry and caught one that landed 4 hours after the leading riders? No, before that still.

Just look at the eventual winner Kristoff Alagaert, a man who likes to ride 1000km at the weekend. With 3 kids and a wife my weekend training was limited to the week before where I did about 800km over the 48 hours. I spent 30 minutes the Tuesday before the race down in London at Athlete Lab (very cool btw) trying to impress Shane Sutton, an exercise in futility if ever there was one. Perhaps an FTP test wasn’t ideal just days before the race was to start?

It's one thing to knock out a bunch of century rides with ease, but the Transcontinental is an altogether different beast. I’ve ridden big miles before, so had an idea of what was coming at me, but I think after the punctures the monkey on my back was in full voice, and upon arriving at CP1 I found that I was already about 18 hours behind the leaders - in a little over 36 hours. Couple the fitness with a level of mental deflation and it’s not an ideal mind-state for continental racing.

Alongside fitness, routing was key. Mine just wasn't good enough, with cobbled forest detours and aborted attempts at Swiss tunnels costing me many hours, not to mention having to carry my bike up hill sides and ride alongside train tracks. This is something that would certainly need more work for next year, ideally visiting and riding the terrain as much as possible in the build up. This adds to the cost of the event and at the time I was  an unemployed student so this was bound to be a factor. Cost also came into play when I arrived in Switzerland. With the price of living being so expensive there, I was super cautious with my money, not wanting to spend over the odds on food. This thinking led me to bonk big-time, totally counter-productive as I then had to neck whatever food I could find in an attempt to get me kickstarted again.

Power, as in electricity, was a stumbling block. I’d seen the week before that my Powermonkey unit was not holding any charge, so I went out and got a VEHO Pebble USB charger (really handy piece of kit). Sadly a dodgy power cable meant the Garmin wasn’t able to be charged via the Exposure dynamo hub, this meant enforced stops to charge the unit - good for cake, not good for racing! This will be alleviated next time out with a Supernova ‘The Plug’ USB charger on the bike, but even this is not infallible as one of the women’s favourites found out to her cost on the first day, causing her to scratch from the race. Electrical supply can play an enormous role in a race like this, more so if social media and photography are important to you - as it was for me.

Weather was the last stumbling block. Whilst I was totally happy with the Assos clothing I had – it performed as well as could be expected (and expectations where high!) – I certainly hadn’t prepared for snow and ice on the Stelvio and consistent rain in France and Switzerland. Coupled with the extremes in Italy again knocked it out of me, riding with wet feet for 48 hours was not fun! I think as well I was a little too cautious, not wanting to take too many risks in crappy weather knowing that there’s family at home.

Did I ever really have a chance to be competitive? No, I don't think so. Did I set out to be? I'm not sure. I know I wanted to get under 10 days, but I was also really interested in writing and documenting the trip, and actually having some fun along the way. With hindsight I'm not sure the two are wholly compatible. Certainly without spot-on planning and routing they’re not.

What was I more interested in? Probably the adventure and documenting it for the race followers, hopefully inspiring some to give it a crack next year. The summer of 2013 saw me riding across Northern Europe, doing around 1000 miles in 3 days, but one of the things I learned during that adventure was that BIG miles involve just getting the head down and turning the pedals, there’s no time or possibility of enjoying the scenery or culture, so that was certainly on my mind as I headed towards the Transcontinental. I wanted to have memories that were fun rather than just spending time with my head down.

As far as kit was concerned, life was good, other than 9 punctures in total, nothing went awry here at all - I will detail what I took with me in a future post - especially for those who are anxious to get ready for next year’s race. Suffice to say, the Rapide RC4 was rock-solid comfy and Di2 was brilliant - I had total use of my hands upon my arrival, not something which all competitors can say!

So what changes for 2015, where I’ll be back with a vengeance

• Fitness. I need to be both lighter and stronger. I lost 6kg over the race, but I needed to start the race probably about 10kg lighter anyway. So more pastry-discipline is needed for sure over the winter months and spring training (a bad habit I’ve had since early morning paper-rounds back in the 80s)
• Route preparation. It needs to be better, this will probably involve going out and doing weekend recces in the springtime.
• Mental toughness. It wasn’t there after the first day. This needs to be worked on, I also need a  clearer definition of what my goals are.
• Luck. I need some better luck - sadly can’t guarantee that!

All in all, I’m happily disappointed with my race. I could have done better, no doubt about it, but the delays and setbacks I had placed me in Verona when someone else needed help, so whilst it meant I didn’t get to finish I got to help someone else instead. Memories made, example set for children, adventure had, and I got to ride 2500km on my bike

Entries open for 2015 at the end of October!