TCRNo11 Day 2 // Subjective Experience; Objective Reality

Words by Jake Thorpe

Photos by Matt Grayson & Tomás Montes

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Beauty Sleep

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Sunrise over Sotres, the last bolthole for those taking the gravel approach to the first parcours. From above, the town’s roofs – sprawling terracotta – appear to snuggle closer, nestling for warmth in the cool morning air. The conditions come as welcome respite for those riders able to tackle the ascent before the sun dissolves the thick layer of cloud draped across the Picos this morning. 

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Almost all of the frontrunners have now slept. Some, including current fastest woman on the road, Jana Kesenheimer (001), found themselves – however briefly – living a life of relative luxury. We caught up with Jana as she wound her way up the switchbacks of the Alto Caballar towards Sotres. Spying Control Car 1, she broke into a wide grin. Clearly, the night in a boutique hotel she’d managed to contrive – a room complete with a whole hamper of beautifying delights; oils, soaps and creams, though sadly not for the chamois – had kicked the day off to a good start. Whatever dermatological wizardry these products contained, they certainly helped Jana cut, knife-like, through the mountain air towards the first control; the leading woman now with the race’s first stamp.

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So far, 50 riders have already used geofencing, the product of a collaboration between TCR and Follow My Challenge – a feature that, when activated, blurs riders’ exact location to the general public, leaving it visible only to the race team. It’s great to see so many adopting that additional safety net – a complementary innovation to tracking’s rapid digital progression.

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The Caballar? It Goes, Boys

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Legend has it that, in the Tour de France, climbs are categorised by whether they are scalable by the most archetypal of all the French automobiles, the Citroën 2CV, and, if so, in which gear. On the grounds of that particular litmus test, the road snaking up from the valley floor to the floating parcours’ gravel approach might be considered Hors Catégorie. Even Control Car 1 – an SUV equipped with all the trappings of the modern vehicle – was forced to retreat to first gear and rev at an alarming register in order to tackle the climb’s steepest ramps. The 2CV seems an unlikely victor in a bout with this particular brute.

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Many, including round-the-world record holder Lael Wilcox (112), appeared, from a distance, to be grooving gleefully at the prospect of these inclines. Closer inspection, however, revealed that the pronounced body bob was a necessary catalyst to maintaining momentum for those choosing to tackle the climb in the saddle.

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For Lael, though, the glee too held true. After a solid night’s sleep, she woke with no pain – a mere fantasy for most following the day she’d just ridden. Along with sleep, Lael credits her short-travel suspension fork for her ebullience. A famed fan of the rough stuff, she constructed her TCR rig, first and foremost, on the grounds of enjoyment. “I didn’t want to avoid it”, she says of the off-road riding, “and I definitely didn’t want to do it and not enjoy it.” Riding a more capable bike will allow her to open the taps on departure from tarmac and, perhaps more importantly, will leave her sporting a much wider smile whenever she does.

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Further up the road, we caught up with Cynthia Carson (137) — not an easy task considering the pace she had chosen to put down on the climb out of Sotres. This spurt of speed was no accident. Pace variation, she explained, is a crucial tactic for her on a race of this scale. The result? A curiously oxymoronic phenomenon: that racing a little harder can sometimes make things feel a little easier. 

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Also chasing Cynthia up the curves of La Caballar was TCRNo9’s Fastest Woman, Jaimi Wilson (003). Up to this point, she’s been resisting the siren call of a glimpse at the tracker, determined instead to ride her own race. That is until she’s off the ferry and into the Balkans, at which point, she assures us, with characteristically Northern English brevity, that she’ll be asking, “Right, now where the f*ck is everyone?”, and perhaps more importantly, “Can I win?”

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Subjective Experience; Objective Reality

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Not everyone made such light work of the Caballar. There were mixed reviews from riders when it came to comparing the climb to its cruel counterpart: the punchy switchbacks of the CP1 approach. Asked how he had found the arrival at CP1, Mark Kowalski (278) – back for a third consecutive stab at the TCR – replied, “Oh no, this is much harder; the departure from CP1, that’s the real kicker.” Mark, who had made the last-minute call to mural a new pair of shoes in the Palestinian and Pride flags ahead of the race, was beginning to regret the choice of fresh footwear. Irritations as a result of oblique cleat positioning had reduced him to walking pace on the Caballar’s upper ramps.

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Most intriguing was the spectrum of subjective experience felt by riders who were, in essence, facing broadly the same external reality. This was epitomised on one of the climb’s lower sections when, crawling dolefully up towards the window of Control Car 1, Russell Kesley (119) leant in and whispered, “This is not fun, Andrew”. Not a minute later, spinning gaily up behind Russ, head on a swivel and mouth agape, compatriate Andrew Brunton (140) exclaimed, “Fucking great route, eh?!”, in perfect Scottish.

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Voyage of the Dammed

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At the base of the first parcours – a 2 km section of mountain descent, described better by its counterpart, the approach, than the event itself – a pair of Beavers sat waiting. Julien Gravaud (398a) and Simon Taulelle (398b) are better known by their animagus sobriquet – a title inherited during the first Accursed Race where the physical and sociological deterioration of the duo saw them degenerate from great ape to aquatic rodent.

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Descending from the parcours, they were, like many, halted momentarily at the lights guiding traffic through the roadworks along the valley floor. If I were one to make sweeping national generalisations, I might point out that absolutely no work whatsoever appeared to be taking place, and that the workers manning the lights – armed with binoculars – seemed to be leveraging their position in pursuit of some amateur twitching. But I’m not, so I won’t. 

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However assiduous the workers, the delay to riders, for those unlucky enough to catch the gatekeepers in the wrong mood, remained the same – about 10 minutes. Unfortunately for the Beavers, but fortunately enough for the media team in Control Car 1, we caught them towards the end of one of these cycles, just as the traffic began to advance. While the pair regaled us with tales from the road, the lights had a change of heart and forward progress, given the duo intended to keep a clean rap sheet, was, once more, halted. Simon and Julien have already begun the petition to have these 10 minutes reinstated come Constanța. 

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No matter how their race progresses, one thing remains certain: the dynamic duo – a pair well deserving of this hackneyed alliterative – will continue to animate the field with their positively infectious disposition. Expect sound bites to be flowing thick and fast.

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A Stitch in Time…

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A dropped stitch in the route planning of French rider Francis Marielle (340) required some unpicking earlier today. Having overlooked the key adjective associated with the first parcours – specifically, floating – he neglected to spot that the parcours, for its part, was unassociated with the control. As a result, Francis might well be the only rider to sample both available parcours approaches. Should we catch up with him on the road, we’ll be sure to ask him which he preferred. I expect the answer, at this point, might well be neither. By the evening, Francis was, once again, heading in the right direction; we commend his tenacity.

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Vedangi Kulkarni (243), still struggling with stuck shifting, saw her day take a turn as evening drew in. Recalling the ghost of Boy Wonder Bosoni and his Austrophile passport – a document that took some cajoling to join him on his journey to Istanbul last year – Vedangi had mislaid her own. At least she can take comfort in the company she keeps.

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We have also seen the race’s first major mechanicals – stories of which spread like wildfire through the volunteer Whatsapp groups; arenas of intense analytical scrutiny.

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Alexander Douglas (209) suffered a shock when, just 350 km into the race, his crankshaft spontaneously sheared. Left with no means of forward momentum, he was forced to flag down a lift to a nearby town to replace it, and is now back on the move, pedalling furiously to meet the CP1 cut-off.

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Adrian Lai (251) has also been suffering at the hand of the structural integrity of his componentry. His original carbon rear wheel is currently in four pieces. Thankfully, Adrian avoided major injury and took a bus to a nearby bike shop, riding back to his point of departure in accordance with the rules. Having committed almost a whole day to this expedition, he is now back in motion, putting down the hammer to make up for lost time.

And, Hopefully, a Stitch Avoided

This afternoon, news reached us of Team Curve’s second race scratch. One of the strongest of this field’s competitors, April Drage (020), has been forced to withdraw after what she described as a “slow stack” on the “innocuous gravel” of the off-road approach to the first parcours left her thumb pointing at a jauntier angle than usual.

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April was effusive in her praise for the landscapes that had hosted her adventure so far; the assessment of its premature conclusion was, simply, “gutted.” She also acknowledged the importance of savouring the experience while you can. After all, “you never know which race will be your last.” We wish her a rapid recovery, and applaud the steadfast poise with which she navigated this untimely accident. April, we look forward to having you back to race across the continent with us in future.

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Scratch Report

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April Drage (020) – Rider scratched 20:16 CEST 29/7 via WhatsApp due to injury following a crash.

Daniel Züst (159) – Rider scratched 6:02 CEST 29/7 via email due to knee pain.

Lawrence Cairns-Smith (379b) – Rider scratched 17:31 CEST 29/7 via sms due to knee pain.

Carsten Dreyer (285) – Rider scratched 13:07 CEST 29/7 via email due to ill health.

Felix Laberge (118) – Rider scratched 12:37 CEST 29/7 via email due to a crash resulting in mechanical failure.

Petra Kanvall (323) – Rider scratched 11:33 CEST 29/7 via email due to time constraints.

Tom Mundy (296) – Rider scratched 11:03 CEST 29/7 via email due to knee pain.

Marco Lang (328) – Rider scratched 9:47 CEST 29/7 via WhatsApp due to knee pain.

Luís Manuel Silva Carvalho (305) – Rider scratched 8:13 CEST 29/7 via WhatsApp due to injury.

Frank Scholler (065) – Rider scratched 19:46 CEST 28/7 via email due to fatigue.

Davide Guidetti (254) – Rider scratched 19:45 CEST 28/7 via WhatsApp due to fatigue.

Kris Wright (173) – Rider scratched 17:00 CEST 28/7 via sms due to mechanical issues.

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