TCRNo11 Day 10 // Strategy, Strategy Strategy

Words by Jake Thorpe

Photos by Matt Grayson, Sam Dugon, Tom Gibbs, and Tomás Montes

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Shrewd Sailors

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A fresh crop of riders reached the port of Durrës on Wednesday morning; another race reset. Some, however, were wilier than others when it came to squeezing some marginal advantage from their crossing. Perhaps the Adriatic isn’t such a neutraliser after all. 

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Jana Kesenheimer (001) gave us a masterclass in ferry management, navigating a flawless  schedule from port to port. Having arrived with time to spare at Bari’s terminal, she managed to negotiate early embarkation, arriving in her cabin at 19:00 ahead of the midnight sailing, while fellow riders waited in ticket offices and hallways, fetid Lycra gradually fusing to skin to form a new epidermis. Sleeping for 3 hours before waking again to refuel, she then bedded down for a further seven hoping to rise, fully refreshed, for her race’s second phase. Making the shrewd decision to consult ferry staff on the quickest exit strategy, Jana was able to slip past the queue of lorries to step ashore almost half an hour ahead of her competitors. 

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The famed fan of tarmac made a beeline for the fifth parcours, then in an unexpected turn, aired down her tyres and took to the dirt. Debriefing the team on arrival at CP5, she explained that the reparative rest of her Adriatic crossing had honed both body and mind for the challenge ahead, allowing her to tackle terrain beyond her typical bounds. Jana arrived in 12th position at Villa Bruci, holding ground as the fastest woman to each control. She appeared in good spirits, undeterred by the Adriatic wiping out most of her hard won lead. She seemed happy to maintain her own cadence – one that had clearly served her well so far. 

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Tedious Delays

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But the ferry had not treated all on board to such blissful circumstances. Cynthia Carson (137), having arrived late on the Italian side – thanks to a protracted search for some warmer clothing to see her through her nights of Balkan bivvying – was then last to alight in Albania, stuck behind the bulk of the boat’s vehicular traffic. Evidently rattled by the trials of the crossing, she was determined to waste no more time. Keeping pace with Jana, despite her half hour forfeit, she arrived 15th to the fifth control, 10 minutes after her partner, Steven Davis (330).

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Steven arrived at the control a little frayed at the edges after his safe-bet circumvention of the off-road riding had been thwarted by his dirt-bound contemporaries. “That was a waste of a shit-ton of energy”, he lamented. Perhaps the integrity of Steven’s tyres – or lack thereof – had dissuaded him from attempting what was, in hindsight, his preferred route. Having used his unhurried approach to Bari to give his bike a full MOT – new brakepads, a new chain, and a litre of sealant per tyre – he had been unamused, to say the least, to puncture 3 km beyond the bike shop. Lael Wilcox’s (112) bike, too – a hardtail gravel rig with short-travel suspension forks – seemed to have held sway in Steven’s decision making process, leading him to believe that the gravel of the off-road approach was “more like supercross”; inaccessible territory for his road bike. Whatever the determinants, Steven clearly regretted his choice. “I know that I’m way better than those people on dirt”, he declaimed,  “and the fact that they’re ahead of me now, it’s frustrating.”

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Levity is the Soul of Grit

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All was not sunshine and roses, however, for riders tackling Burrel’s direct approach. Some seemed wildly unprepared for the terrain, with Danny Green (155) opting to buy a pair of flip flops, which came in a rather fetching lilac, by way of a contingency, should hike-a-biking be required. Even those with appropriate equipment weren’t granted a free pass. Recounting her misfortune with typical levity, Lael recalled approaching the section brimming with confidence. Her specifically tailored bike choice, combined with the fresh rubber fitted in Bari, gave good reason for such optimism. “This is my day”, she’d thought, as the tarmac had ceased and the dirt began.  

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Relatively quickly, however, Lael found herself rowing back on that particular assertion. Having sustained a snick to her sidewall that refused to seal, only to discover her only tube of super glue desiccated and useless, the Alaskan was left to resort, instead, to more creative solutions. 

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Mixing vulcanising glue with toothpaste to form a makeshift mucilage, she then spread the compound on her sidewall. Sadly this bodge bore no fruit so, in a last ditch effort, she plugged the hole and made her way gingerly onward. Arriving 20th to CP5, she stopped once again to inflate her tyre, hoping the plug would, eventually, seal. “I just hope it will hold, because otherwise… rats”, she chuckled. Seemingly unperturbed by the day’s slow progress, the Alaskan admitted she enjoys the chase. However dire her predicament, Lael’s trademark good humour was going nowhere. It’s what makes her such a beloved cyclist; and such a formidable competitor. 

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Murphy’s Law

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Another rider famed for his tenacity in the stickiest predicaments is Christoph Strasser (002). Despite having been the last of the second wave to have reached Burrel’s control, by dint of a 24 hour spell of single-minded riding, the Austrian had covered 490 kilometres by Wednesday morning, bringing him to the head of the chasing pack. While his current position in the race may seem to tell otherwise, Christoph’s ferry crossing – and subsequent stint on Balkan soil – has been far from plain sailing. 

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First facing GPS issues that forced a switch to mobile navigation, then powerbank issues that prevented him from recharging his new map, Christoph began the sprint on the back foot. His woes were then compounded with the theft of two of his three rear lights – a device of which the optimal number, according to the Austrian, is “n+1”. To have forgone the n puts Christoph’s night rides at the mercy of his charging capacity. 

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Struggling too, like Lael, to maintain the structural integrity of his sidewalls, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, while scything down a descent, a tremendous bang from Christoph’s rear tyre alerted him that all was not well in the pneumatic department. Discovering a sidewall slash, Christoph replaced the tube and limped on in search of a replacement. Both tubed and tubeless alike seem to have been disturbed by the Balkan crust. 

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Decision Paralysis

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Wednesday saw a rare double sailing depart from the port of Bari – the first of the race so far. The additional midday crossing gave riders the opportunity to expedite their advance towards the Balkans by half a day. It seems the abundance of options befuddled the plans of some riders, however, blunting the sense of acute focus evoked in a No Plan B situation.

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One rider diagnosed with a case of decision paralysis was Julian Klose (158). Julian had spent Tuesday night just outside of San Severo, leaving himself a flat century to ride before late the next morning, in order to catch the midday sailing. Hardly dragging his feet, Julian left at 04:00 to dispatch the distance to the ferry. He had, however, hoped to have left earlier in order to guarantee himself a buffer should anything go awry. And – funnily enough – awry things went. 

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Traffic through the small coastal towns slowed Julian to a crawl, while a slew of long red lights saw him make halting progress. By far the greatest calamity, however, came when Julian’s path was interrupted by not one, but two level crossings. Clearly the yin to Sunday’s Aeolian yang, the barriers halted Julian for a total of 30 minutes, leaving him to bake in the sun while his ferry embarked on the crossing without him.

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Giving up the Ghost

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In the TCR, some things – like level crossings, for instance – remain perpetually outside one’s control; they’re what sprinkle a little serendipity into the race, separating the field to taste. But one choice remains firmly within riders’ sway. Their route. Freerouting is an art. It’s what opens up the metrics for success in the TCR from the narrow walls of pure grit, to the broad hall of strategy.

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This year, perhaps the greatest example of this difference has come from Justinas Leveika (023). Justinas boasts an impeccable palmarès. During the last 4 years, he has banked 17 podium finishes across 21 races, 11 of which saw him take the top spot. In all of these, however, he has followed a route. Chaos can, demonstrably, enhance a race that rests on solid foundations. But when entropy is given the opportunity to reign supreme – permeating the bedrock of a race: its route – the results seem to be less favourable. By the fifth control in Burrel, Justinas had, officially, relinquished all racing intentions. 

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On the grounds of enjoyment, however, his decision seemed a good one. Beaming from ear to ear on the off-road approach, the King of Chaos is clearly happier off the beaten track. Still, as the tarmac deteriorates on this side of the Adriatic – a surface described by Christoph Pernsteiner (175) as “not the yellow of the egg” – Justinas may yet find himself to be a Balkan Roadie.

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In a wild deviation from his initial outlook, Nicolas Chatelet (046) announced on Wednesday morning that he too had abandoned all competitive aspirations. Having suffered 11 punctures in 60 km, the Frenchman appeared to have run out of both tubes and patience. Instead, he made plans to ride to the finish line in his own time and on his own terms, unswayed by the intentions of his fellow, second-wave riders. 

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He may, however, come to wish his onward journey had remained somewhat swayed – specifically by the border politics of the region he’s looking to traverse. By evening, the Frenchman appeared bound for Kosovo’s border with Serbia – a contentious frontier given that one doesn’t recognise the existence of the other. In the past, this crossing has spelled trouble. It remains to be seen whether Nico will find himself faced with a lengthy diversion to escape this particular political quagmire. 

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A Very Unfriendly Bridge Indeed

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Elsewhere in the field – at a rather crucial location, in fact – competition was, once again, stirring. The front of the race had, earlier in the day, looked to be a foregone conclusion. Victor Bosoni (232) had drawn out a significant lead over Martin Moritz (297), who, despite having gained some ground on his southern route through Bulgaria, remained firmly rooted in second position. 

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All that changed with the Friendship Bridge. This bridge had been a source of much contention in the run up to the race – coming under intense scrutiny from riders and preemptive dotwatchers alike. Race Director, Andrew Phillips, had been clear at Santiago’s briefing. Bulgarian E roads were banned; direct river crossings were permitted; and any riders finding themselves north of the Danube had arrived there at their own discretion, given that both the fifth and the finish parcours were found south of the river. Anyone venturing north of this boundary must be doing so in the hope of gaining an advantage; whether they would or not would depend on the rigour of their research and its results on their route planning.

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Hoping to cross the bridge via a pedestrian footpath, Victor soon found himself at an impasse after race organisers – in the interest of rider safety – deemed the bridge unsafe and impossible to cross within race rules. Should the border-spanning bridge be used to symbolise relations between Bulgaria and Romania, it might suggest diplomacy’s in dire straits. Lorries sunk into the soft, indented tarmac, crawling along the narrow carriageway nose-to-tail. The pedestrian walkway was, on the Bulgarian side at least, separated from the traffic by a barrier; but crucially, it remained separated from the hundred-foot drop below by very little indeed. 

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Forced to reformulate his route, Victor scoured the north bank of the Danube in search of an alternative crossing. Hoping that, somewhere within the contradictory mélange of online information, the service joining Chucia to Silistra might offer him safe passage, the young Frenchman stepped on the pedals once more, launching into his second headlong dash to a ferry of the race so far. Martin, who had remained south of the Danube all along, found himself blessed with one last shot at the top spot.

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Scratch Report 

Frédéric Rudant (144) – Rider scratched 21:59 CEST 6/8 via email due to Shermer’s neck.

Robert Bagot (091) – Rider scratched 16:39 CEST 6/8 via email due to fatigue.

Manuel Drath (271) – Rider scratched 19:56 CEST 6/8 CEST via WhatsApp due to a combination of nostalgia for home and an uncomfortable/cursed saddle.

Giorgio Emanuel (372) – Rider scratched after 48hrs no contact. No movement. confirmed via social media.

Gwennaël Maffei (164) – Rider scratched 11:48 CEST 6/8 via WhatsApp due to Shermer’s neck.

Mohamed Almarar (294) – Rider scratched after 48 hrs with no comms or movement. NOK contacted and rider is okay.

Boris Reyher (208) – Rider scratched 8:05 CEST 6/8 via email due to knee pain.

Pierre Picard (198) – Rider scratched 6:51 CEST 6/8 via email due to knee pain.

Antoine Meunier (348) – Rider scratched 6:46 CEST 6/8 via WhatsApp due to hand issues preventing safe riding.

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