I woke up much later than planned, but I really needed the sleep. After fueling up on the hotel breakfast buffet, I retrieved my bike from the cellar and headed up to Grindewald to start the CP2 parcours. I nearly missed the hotel checkpoint, with the name on the buildings on both sides of the road, but safely pulled in to get my brevet card stamped in about 32nd position. I bumped into Darren Franks #114 and met the pairs #212, Andrew Boyd & James Stannard for the first of many times on this journey. It was great to meet up with and chat to some … Continue reading TCR No. 4 Part 3: The Mountains. CP2 – CP3

As much as I had realised I would be unlikely to compete with my choice of route, I thought that I should at least make a good go of it. Had a quick clean up at McDonald’s, stowed the emergency cheeseburger, packed up the bike and pointed it to the lumpy horizon. I had to laugh at myself as they came closer. Hills 1: Thiers, Col St Thomas, and down to Roanne There was a mostly flat and reasonably quick run to the first of the hills, but boy did it step up in Thiers. The town has an almost vertical ramp up into the town followed … Continue reading TCR No.4 Part 2: Attacking the Jura

Wow. The start was pretty incredible. I had barely time to process it before I was trying to work out which way to go next. A cobbled descent off the Muur, hang a right, spot Paul #67 and gave him a shout, then hang a left where almost everyone seems to be going straight. A pair went past shouting “another one for the cool route!”. No sooner had they passed me and were pushing on they took another turn, then I was alone. It might have been 2o minutes, but that’s all it took. for the next hour or so at various junctions you would spot … Continue reading TCR No. 4 Part 1: Start to CP1

Getting there Crunch time! I booked my bike and I onto a Eurostar to arrive in Brussels the day before the race to allow me an easy night in Brussels, using a free night with Hotels.com to get a fairly decent hotel. I dropped the bike off at eurodespatch where I had arranged to meet with Neil from Bowman, who wanted to do a short interview for the Bowman video blog, and to hand over a spare mech hanger. Just in case. You can see the interview here on their Between the Lines Blog. Bowman Cycles also did a nice pre-race blog post with questions and answers from all the BC … Continue reading Starting the Transcontinental Race