With solely a handful of hours left to experience of what had been an epic journey throughout Europe, Christoph Strasser was nearly capable of see victory within the 2023 Transcontinental Race up forward. After hundreds of kilometres toiling by way of Europe, he was so shut. And but it wasn’t that straightforward. It was pitch darkish, the batteries in his lights had run down and he had a puncture to attempt to repair.
To cap all of it, he already had misplaced his all-important GPS tracker, issued to all rivals. He could have been inside shouting distance of the chequered flag however at that time, having stumbled round in woodland for practically an hour on the lookout for the offending merchandise, victory appeared a great distance off certainly.
With practically 4,000 kilometres (2,485 miles), 40,000 vertical metres and 350 riders all behind him, the 41-year-old Austrian ultra-distance star was starting to really feel the Transcontinental Race bubble by which he had existed for the previous eight days was in severe hazard of bursting.
THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RACE IN NUMBERS
Inaugural occasion: August 2, 2013
Entry price: £440
Distance: 3,200-4,200km (2,000-2,500 miles)
Elevation: 30,000-45,000m
Entrants 2013: 30
Finishers 2013: 20
Entrants 2023: 355
Finishers 2023: 171
Day by day km to complete inside time restrict: 250-280
Day by day km to win general: 400-450
The occasion had broadly gone to plan as much as that time, however the closing 150 kilometres have been nothing wanting disastrous. “They have been a disaster actually,” he says. “I had just a little crash on a gravel part and misplaced my tracker… In search of it in the midst of the evening, I used to be strolling within the woods for an hour. Then I needed to repair a flat tyre with out lights.” Strasser had been dreading the off-road sections, and now his worst fears have been being borne out.
Nearing the end line within the Greek port metropolis of Thessaloniki, he assumed the hardships have been behind him. Not a little bit of it. “There have been 20% steep ups and downs,” he says. “So I used to be within the historic centre of town and I used to be strolling and pushing the bike as a result of it was too steep to experience. Once I reached the end, I used to be actually just a little bit irritated,” he admits with a rueful smile.
Irritated or in any other case, Strasser did certainly attain the end in first place, coming residence in eight days, 16 hours and half-hour in what was the ninth version of what has, over the previous decade, turn out to be a key appointment on the bikepacking calendar.
(Picture credit score: Transcontinental Race)
The way it all started
The Transcontinental Race (TCR for brief) was conceived by Yorkshireman Mike Corridor and first held in 2013, when it ran from London to Istanbul. A mountain biker turned ultra-distance rider, Corridor was an instrumental determine in what was nonetheless a curious nook of the game – not but filling the just-left-of-mainstream area of interest it now occupies.
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In addition to inspiring others, Corridor was a proficient competitor, successful main occasions such because the Tour Divide and the Trans Am Bike Race within the USA, and setting a brand new round-the-world report in 2012 when he received the inaugural World Cycle Race. Tragically, Corridor was killed, aged 35, in the course of the Indian Pacific Wheel Race in 2017, however he left the ultra-distance world with an important and enduring reward within the TCR.
One key function of the occasion is that the beginning and end modifications from 12 months to 12 months – although it nearly all the time runs from north-west Europe to south-west, similar to that very first version. Solely as soon as has it headed in the wrong way – in 2019, it started in Burgas, Bulgaria, and completed within the French port of Brest on Brittany’s far western tip.
Of all of the begins and finishes, Geraardsbergen in Flandrian Belgium has proved the most well-liked, with six editions beginning there, together with the 2023 version received by Strasser. It is a city with a longstanding and illustrious biking connection, that includes on the route of Classics races together with the Tour of Flanders. For this 12 months’s landmark tenth version of the TCR, the beginning strikes to a different biking location for an inaugural begin at Roubaix, from the place rivals will head to Istanbul for the primary time since 2015.
The spirit of TCR
The TCR has a spirit and a soul all of its personal, thanks largely to having grown up as a maverick occasion, not ruled by umbrella organisations just like the UCI. Identical to the occasion itself, even the outcomes are non-conformist; in 2019 for instance, it was received general by a girl, Fiona Kolbinger of Germany, who beat second-placed Ben Davies by greater than 10 hours on the east-west traverse from Burgas to Brest.
Within the TCR, riders are fully self-supported. They discover – or carry – their very own lodging, they usually even devise their very own routes, and it’s all the way down to the person to search out their very own manner from begin to end. There are only a few exceptions to the self-navigation rule, which come within the type of a number of ‘parcours’ dotted alongside the way in which. These are sections that the riders should deal with in full and usually move by way of a checkpoint alongside the way in which, or close by.
For a lot of – maybe most – the TCR is extra about merely participating than trying to win, however there’s a sure period of time stress. There’s a cut-off, which often comes after round two weeks and necessitates using 250km or extra every day to be able to duck inside it. Riders who efficiently do that are given a coveted ‘Basic Classification’ ending place. Those that do not are nonetheless classed as finishers – however they could not discover anybody ready for them on the finish of the occasion.
Whereas the occasion is tackled totally on the roads, it’s normal for the parcours to function off-road sections – one thing that even a rider of Strasser’s calibre will not be wholly snug with. Like most contenders for the highest locations, Strasser’s steed of alternative was very a lot geared in direction of effectivity on the blacktop moderately than tackling gnarly trails – he was using a Specialised Roubaix with 28mm Specialised Roubaix tyres. “I am not an off-road man,” he says. “However there are gravel sections – very irritating at instances however everyone has to do it.”
2023 Transcontinental Race winner Christoph Strasser
(Picture credit score: Lex Karelly)
Bye bye shuteye
The opposite main impediment flung at any rider hoping for a excessive end in TCR is dealing with an absence of sleep. Once you’re averaging 400km (248 miles) every day, sleep comes at a premium. Strasser managed round three hours an evening. He additionally realized from his successful experience the earlier 12 months and opted to sleep in a visitor home each evening, versus tenting. “It isn’t as romantic and adventurous, however it’s extra environment friendly,” he stated. “You could have a greater restoration.”
In contrast to in a highway race or a time trial, ultra-distance racing – the place merely holding going is the secret – affords rivals the possibility to admire their environment. Strasser says he by no means let the fantastic thing about the endeavor move him by, regardless of his give attention to successful, and he was recurrently stunned by the locations he discovered himself in. “Within the center a part of the race, particularly within the Balkans, you’ll not discover numerous info,” says Strasser, “so it is actually thrilling whenever you experience by way of a spot like Montenegro and Albania. They have been probably the most scenic and delightful components of the race. Albania is so pretty. I feel a lot of the racers felt the identical.”
In tribute to these lovely and untouched environment, organiser Misplaced Dot seems eager to encourage riders to behave ecologically responsibly, and final 12 months launched the Inexperienced Leaderboard. This was a separate classification for riders who opted to not fly to the beginning or from the end. Received general final 12 months by Tim De Witte of Belgium (who additionally positioned third general), with Germany’s Marie Moldenhauer first girl, the Inexperienced Leaderboard does not supply prizes to its prime finishers, however there are small grants out there for individuals who could not have the ability to afford the additional expense of mixed buses, trains and even resorts.
Will Strasser, as reigning champion, return to defend his title and probably report his TCR hat-trick? “The TCR is totally completely different yearly – it is actually a brand new problem each time. That is one of many issues I actually like,” he says. “One of many issues I don’t like, actually, is the off-road. In the event that they enhance that additional, possibly I cannot do it any extra. However let’s have a look at.”
Mark Kowalski finishes the 2023 TCR
(Picture credit score: Mark Kowalski)
View from the mid-pack
London-based Mark Kowalski was on a profession break when he took up long-distance biking eight years in the past, diving in on the deep finish with a three-month, 9,000km experience throughout his native Canada. Again within the UK he started getting into occasions, from one-day Audax rides to the 1,200km Paris-Brest-Paris.
Lastly, after finishing the 1,400km London-Edinburgh-London in 2022, a pal satisfied him to enter the Transcontinental Race, mollifying his hesitance by stating he won’t get in anyway. Evidently, he did.
“That was fairly the day,” Kowalski says. “It was shortly after Christmas, getting this electronic mail. All of it turned very actual at that time.”
Going into the experience, the massive goal, he says, was merely to complete – caveated with the added stress of his mother and father being there on the end over a comparatively compact four-day interval earlier than having to depart. “I would agreed with myself, if I will miss that window, I am going to simply get on a bus or practice and simply cease as a result of I wish to see my mother and father,” says Kowalski. “They reside in Canada, so it is such a uncommon deal with to have them there.”
Through the occasion he was visited by good and unhealthy fortune in pretty equal measure. A primary puncture, deep within the Albanian mountains, discovered him with a defective pump and a wasted CO2 canister – (“I simply screamed together with the mountain”) – was solely the start of his tyre / pump points. By the point he reached Greece his tyres featured important duct-tape accoutrements and he was on his third pump.
Extra fortuitous was his determination to hike-a-bike by way of a tough and tumble mountain climbing monitor across the Stelvio move, moderately than try the two,000m climb, which helped him leapfrog from round seventy fifth to thirty ninth. He additionally skilled the entire spectrum of emotion – multi functional go on one event: “Coming as much as Mount Olympus was fairly a second… I used to be simply bawling and laughing on the identical time, like, ‘what’s going on?’.” he says.
In contrast to with Christoph Strasser, all of it got here collectively on the run-in to the end, and Kowalski ended on a excessive. “I used to be like, I am good to go… my bike is working, I am on cloud 9 proper now, nothing’s gonna cease me from attending to the top. And I managed to return again to thirty second place in any case that. It was completely a dream come true.” And his mother and father? He beat them there by a day.
Roadside assist for riders on the Paris-Brest-Paris
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos / Christophe Calais / Corbis)
A world of ultra-distance using
For those who’re that manner inclined and have sufficient spare money, there are a lot extra ultra-distance occasions to select from.
GB Duro
2,000km
This 12 months’s GB Duro runs from Land’s Finish to Cape Wrath in North-West Scotland in a single 2,000km gravel stage. There aren’t any prizes for successful however no cut-off both.
Paris-Brest-Paris
1,200km
The granddaddy of all of them, ‘PBP’ started life as a highway race within the Eighteen Nineties, however for the previous 70 years or so has been run as a non-competitive Audax occasion.
Silk Street Mountain Race
1,938km
Run off in a single-stage like GBDuro however within the far much less compromising terrain of the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Options singletrack, double monitor and outdated Soviet roads. No winner’s prizes.
Indian Pacific Wheel Journey
5,500km
One of many longest rides on the calendar, the IPWR runs west to east throughout Australia, unsupported and untimed. It’s the unofficial successor of the Indian Pacific Wheel Race, which was cancelled in 2017 after the dying of ultra-distance luminary Mike Corridor in the course of the occasion.
All Factors North
1,000km+
An ultra-distance occasion with a distinction. Beginning and ending in the identical place – Sheffield – riders tick off 10 management factors unfold all through northern England, in any order they select.
Liège-Paris-Liège
1,000km
Conceived as a tribute to the Liège-Bastogne-Liège WorldTour race, LPL is just like TCR in that it is unsupported and options a number of necessary parcours and a free alternative of route in-between. Minimize-off is 87 hours.