TCRNo11 Day 16 // A Duel and a Duet

Words by Jake Thorpe

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

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Continental Cat and Mouse 

Anyone under the impression that only riders at the sharp end of the TCR are really racing – those with the scent of classification titles, top 10s, or field-leading positions caught in their nostrils – would be wrong. Very wrong. Tuesday night saw perhaps the closest contest so far for a position in the General Classification play out between two riders on the Finish Parcours. The position in question? 74th. 

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Johnny Good (338) and Ekrem Ekicigil (283) had spent the race through Europe moving forward in much the same rhythm. The two dots were engaged in a gargantuan game of grandmother’s footsteps, inching forwards during the day and freezing, stock still, at night. Johnny had, however, maintained a marginal lead over his Turkish chaser until Southern Italy, when the sparse timetabling of the Adriatic forced the two together on their journey towards the Balkans. 

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Regaining his momentum on Albanian soil, Johnny had once again edged a lead over Ekrem, with 4 hours and nine positions separating the pair by the fifth control. In their most significant navigational split of the race, however, from North Macedonia, Johnny headed north of the Danube, while Ekrem stuck south. The Southerner made storming progress through Bulgaria, closing Johnny’s lead. By the Finish Parcours, not just their routes but the riders themselves were fused together for a final time. Forced into such proximity, the two riders leapfrogged one another along the last stretch of mandatory riding. 

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Ekrem was first to emerge from the composite trail of gravel and grass that keeps riders off Constanța’s busy roads, guiding them safely towards the finish. Back on tarmac, and once more free to use his hands for something besides skillful manoeuvring, Ekrem called his wife to celebrate the conclusion of his two-week dash across a continent. Celebrations were, however, premature. 

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Having spotted his rival relenting up ahead, Johnny took his chance, launching into a full sprint along the seafront. For several kilometres, the pair locked horns. The skirmish careened from the boardwalk down onto the beach where, for a moment, it looked as if Ekrem – squirrelling in deep sand drifts – might have conceded the lead. But a spell of diffident navigation in the last hundred metres for Johnny ultimately put Ekrem ahead, a position the Turkish rider maintained to the finish. Throwing his bike down at the entrance to Zoom Beach Bar, and brandishing his brevet card to the mob of assembled volunteers, his position was validated and Ekrem collapsed onto the sand, coating his sweat-slicked skin in an abrasive crust. A 74th place well earned.

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Playing Dirty

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Taking an honourable 75th, Johnny arrived a bike-length behind Ekrem, his first TCR GC finish – the result of a three-year endeavour – finally under his belt. Having finished outside TCRNo9’s time limit, and then having scratched, a year later, from its encore, Johnny has now become living proof that third time is, indeed, a charm. 

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Greeted by his parents and draped, ceremoniously, in the Irish Tricolour, Johnny looked a picture of unbridled effort on the finish line. Sweating from every available pore, he quipped, “Well, I am Irish, I don’t cope well with the heat.” Streaked in grease and grime, his one-word synopsis of his third TCR was, naturally, “dirty.” 

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Cowboy Repairs

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Arriving at Zoom Beach on Tuesday afternoon in a far more serene state was the third pair to cross the line, Christian Dupraz (374a) and Dina Byland (374b). Offering absolutely no indication that, only 220 km earlier, their finish had been in serious jeopardy, the pair made a modest arrival, politely declining the offer of a celebratory drink in favour of the sun-warmed bottle of once-iced tea they’d carried with them on the final stretch. Only when pressed by Race Director, Andrew, did Dina acknowledge the rugged sheath of tape adorning her down tube. 

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A day earlier, Dina had noticed a slight wobble beginning to emanate from her bike on the descents. Chalking it up to nothing more than the gusty interference of a Bulgarian breeze, she gave it no mind. Then, after a while, the wobble began to surface on the flats, too. Having begun by probing the headset, which was given the all clear, Dina then moved back along the bike. There, things became very murky very quickly. It was soon apparent that Dina’s steel down tube had cracked. Taking stock from Tarnovtsi, the rural Bulgarian hamlet in which the pair found themselves, a plan was quickly devised – a plan that involved a garden chair, a local craftsman and a roll of duct tape. 

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At the finish line, Dina showed off the cowboy repair. Splinting the frame, the steel legs of the garden chair had been crudely welded to either side of her down tube, then the lot had been swaddled in a thick layer of tape, presumably for aesthetic purposes. The local welder, when the integrity of the bodge had been probed by the pair, had proceeded to hammer the splintered joint until, fearful of losing yet more time to a second repair, Christian had beseeched the man to stop. The bodge had, however, evidently benefited from the peening, and the frame’s brace had held for the remainder of the journey. 

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A Trumpet Unblown

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Christian and Dina cut a steadfast silhouette on the shores of the Black Sea – Christian’s unpretentious steel rig, complete with rim brakes and bar-end friction shifters, beside Dina’s own MacGyvered steed. The TCR was Dina’s first race, and she has approached it with the same understated composure with which we’ve seen Christian amass his own, admirable palmarès. One of the few riders to boast a clean sweep of top-10 finishes across the Lost Dot calendar, the irony is clear: the word boast remains a notable absence from Christian’s vocabulary.

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According to Dina, the only apparent difference between the pair’s first race and their many bike tours together has been “less time to go swimming.” Christian, however, added another distinction to the mix – a Goldilocks dilemma. While touring, much to Dina’s frustration, he is famously slow at resupplying; while racing, to her equal vexation, he is far too quick. If this is the greatest of their frictions, it appears the pair’s racing career is off to a promising start.

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Scratch Report

Dirk Hermans (223) – Rider scratched 11:16 CEST 13/8 via WhatsApp due to time constraints.

Nina Englert (353) – Rider scratched 00:37 CEST 13/8 via WhatsApp due to time constraints.

Jonah Stephan (355) – Rider scratched 16:18 CEST 12/8 via WhatsApp due to fatigue.

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