TCRNo11 Day 7 // The Bike Race Resumes

Words by Jake Thorpe

Photos by Chiara Redaschi, Matt Grayson, Michael Drummond, and Tomás Montes

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The Fulcrum of the Race

It’s midnight in Puglia, and two riders have just boarded a ferry bound for Durrës. 

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Two years ago, ahead of TCRNo9, Race Director Andrew Phillips wrote:

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At the fulcrum of the race, where a critical moment is enough to upset the finest balance between the heights of elation and the depths of despair, riders will discover the strength of their resolve and test the limits of their self-belief. 

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Day 7 of TCRNo11 has certainly tested the resolve of its four leading riders. The ferry – the fulcrum on which this race has teetered – has weighed heavy on both spirit and strategy for days. It is a strict arbiter. But whatever the ferry’s ruling, it’s important to remember that, for riders, the playing field has remained level; the only difference is that this level playing field happens to be one in which not everyone is in the same boat. 

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A Bout of Acute Self-doubt

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The day began with questions. Delving into the nightly progress of the leading dots through the Central and Southern Apennines, it soon became clear that not all of the frontrunners had stuck to plans made on the strade bianche of the third parcours; a sleepless night, a single push. Victor Bosoni (232) appeared to have bedded down for almost 3 hours in Rieti – coincidentally, the same hilltop town Control Team 1 had chosen as the night’s bolthole.

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It’s impossible to tell from a dot on a screen but that pause had been a moment of acute self-doubt for the young Frenchman. He’d searched for a hotel to rest a while, surrendering any hope of a Sunday sailing. The push was too much; the road ahead too long. Having found nothing available, however, he’d resigned instead to a noisy corridor nap. When he woke and saw his fellow racers pushing for the threshold, his resolve was restored and he, too, pushed on.

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Going into the night’s riding, Christoph Strasser (002) was still very much breathing down the leaders’ necks. “I’m in a rush, I’m in a hurry”, he’d said of his dash to the port. “But is it worth a try? Yes.” For Christoph, a tough night lay ahead. Six hundred kilometres separated him from his objective. The prospect of the ferry had unsettled his rhythm. Renowned for his clockwork tempo and judicious pacing, the Austrian rouleur has historically preferred to ride through the pack, gobbling up those flagging riders whose pace has proven unsustainable as the race unfolds. He is the metronome around which the rest of the symphony ebbs and flows.

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But riding through the pack becomes a taller order when that pack is partitioned by 217 nautical miles of Adriatic sea. Faced with that prospect, the metronome was forced to miss a beat. The pendulum still swung – just not in his favour. As Christoph rode into an hourless night, exhaustion soon set in. Intermediate sprints are not the domain of the veteran racer. His pace slowed, unforced errors crept in and, after stopping for 2 hours to sleep beside a church, and then for a 20 min power nap a little while later, he dropped further behind his fellow riders. By morning, for Christoph, the race for Sunday’s ferry was all but over. 

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Nicolas Chatelet (046), the fourth of the leading pack, appeared stuck for a while in San Quirico d’Orcia – a nap, or a mechanical, it was tough to tell. Having entered the Tuscan settlement 15 minutes ahead of Christoph, he spent nearly 2 hours pinging around the town’s piping before pressing on. A slightly more direct route saw him regain ground on the Austrian, passing him at midnight, before laying chase to the young Frenchman ahead. As Victor slept in Reiti, Nicolas reeled him in, passing just before dawn to hold his lead to Pacentro. 

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CP4: Brought to You by the Dixie Hogs

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Sunday in Pacentro. The double bassist of a local band, the Dixie Hogs, laid down his walking bassline in the central square, the Piazza del Popolo. The swish of brushes on the snare and a swing triplet on the hi-hat – the heartbeat of smoky, after-hours jazz – clashed with the suono delle campane, the town’s call to prayer, in a percussive cacophony. 

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Martin Moritz (297), who had now held the head of the race for a touch over 2 days, opened the control, claiming his stamp before first Mass. On the 10 km climb out of town, the opening bars of the parcours’ second movement, he had a message for his chasers. “There’s this beautiful spa in Bari; take the day off, it’s my treat.” 

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When Nicolas arrived, he appeared to have little use for Martin’s generosity. Already drenched in sweat from the morning’s effort, another stint in the sauna seemed like the last thing he required. After a quick discussion with the Race Director, he set off again a little lighter – relieved of his spare derailleur hanger, in accordance with the rules*.

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Lightning Rarely Strikes Twice

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Arriving in a flash, Victor – third to CP4 – appeared primed for a rapid pitstop. Barely pausing for breath, he rummaged quickly through his top-tube bag to retrieve his brevet card for stamping. Then he rummaged again, this time a little more slowly. Concern flashed across the young Frenchman’s face. He removed his hydration pack and carefully checked its contents. The hum of the piazza seemed to hush. Finally, he emptied his pockets. Nothing. A hand massaged a creased forehead – a mirror image of the previous year – as Victor blinked back tears, nightmarish memories flooding in. The brevet card was nowhere to be seen.

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But thankfully, brevet cards are far less inimitable documents than passports. As Victor recharged his glucose battery with four cokes and a Red Bull, Andrew – returning 10 minutes later from the upper slopes of the parcours – retrieved him a spare. When the Race Director arrived, sweet relief broke across the Boy Wonder’s brow. Beaming, he set off up the parcours with a word of advice for his fellow riders, supplementing his existing catalogue: “Don’t forget your brevet card.” Ten minutes, however, in a race coming down to the final second, could rear its ugly head again come crunch time. 

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Christoph arrived at Pacentro’s control 3 hours later, the nails now well and truly hammered into the coffin of his Sunday sailing. He was regrouping, making other plans, and coming to terms with the fact that, if another rider were to make the ferry, his own goal of a winning hat-trick would have faded, considerably from view; his focus instead forced to shift to whether the prospect of a podium finish remained possible, preserving the track record of his TCR palmarès.

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A carton of Pocket Coffee poking out from his jersey pocket, he entered the bar to resupply. Wisps of conversation floated out onto the terrazza. “I’m in a bike race”, he explained patiently to the barman, in an attempt to expedite the service. The old-hand Austrian continued to display pitch-perfect sportsmanship, a graciousness he extends to all those involved in the race, from fellow riders to volunteers, even to those he chances to meet along his way – the sorts slowing service to ask whether he’d like a loyalty card to use on his next visit. He admitted it’s sometimes hard to explain to them that, when it comes to the TCR, lightning rarely strikes twice.

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By midday, it had become clear that another rider had also relinquished his hopes of keeping pace with the head of the race. At 13:30, Nicolas, who had chosen to take an inland approach to Bari – one with significantly more climbing than its coastal alternative and, that day, none of its meteorological advantage – acknowledged that he, too, would fail to make the ferry. Shortly after, he ground to a halt in Isernia. 

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The Transcontinental had just become a two-horse race.

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Festina Coti

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Further down the coastline, rain appeared, falling in fat globules that splattered the ground ostentatiously – announcing their arrival to the thirsty earth. Two riders, however, hardly noticed. Their focus was singular. A headlong sprint towards Italy’s heel. Ultracycling’s timeworn proverb, festina lente – make haste slowly – had transformed; festina coti – its expeditious alternative – had quickly become the flavour of the moment.

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Throughout the afternoon, trees had nodded towards Bari, gently affirming the riders’ trajectory. By evening, however, it seemed the whole world had turned its attention to the medieval port – a focal coalescence of the human and the elemental. Remote predictions indicated a light cross-tailwind along the coast. Reality, however, revealed a different story. On the arrow-straight Roman road between Foggia and Barletta, the air moved in just one direction: South-East. And it moved with a vengeance. 

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A fierce wind whipped the foliage into regimental alignment. After a slower spell navigating the coastal traffic between Vasto and Termoli, the open road greeted the riders once again past Foggia, the wind spurring them on as they cut inland to forge a more direct path towards the ferry, severing the peninsula of the Parco Nazionale del Gargano. In perfect parallel, man and mistral stormed together along the coast of the Apulian Adriatic.

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Victor had been quietly gaining on Martin throughout the day. From Pacentro’s control, the Pocket Rocket had maintained 31.25 km/h – an elapsed average speed he held for 10 hours 23 minutes. Having reached CP4 more than 2 hours behind Martin, 9 hours later, at 22:00, the German’s lead lay in tatters. Just 10 km separated the two riders – 15 minutes at Victor’s time-trialling pace.

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From Trinitapoli, however, a slew of coastal towns slowed progress, each a melange of cobbled streets, erratic traffic, pedestrian crossings and red lights, none of which are conducive to maintaining such blistering pace. The two riders picked a careful path through the urban sprawl, trading speed for safety in the closing bars of their 600 km sprint.

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Victor Bosoni: the Basis of a Potent and Persuasive Cocktail

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Control Car 1 arrived at the ferry terminal in Bari at 21:30. Waiting with bated breath, the crew – like the rest of the dotwatching world – sat, eyes glued to the tracker. Schedules were mapped and scrapped; averages calculated, checked and double checked. The dots inched forward, their fate balanced on a knife edge.

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Moritz arrived first, and after two days and a night spent in hot pursuit of his inanimate opponent, the German leader could express little beyond acute exhaustion. “I’m not sure if I can continue.” he sighed, wearily. He explained how, at the top of Pacentro’s parcours, 10 hours of solid riding earlier, he’d had to pull over and lie down beside the road to relieve his mounting nausea. It had been friends, he said, endorsing his prospects with ironclad conviction, that had helped stoke his fire, forcing him to press on despite his own self-doubts. Combined with the closing velocity of one Pocket Rocket Bosoni – threatening to appear at any moment, “with a tap on the shoulder”, to swallow Martin’s lead – this formed a potent and persuasive cocktail.

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As the realisation began to dawn, however, that the effort had been worth it, that, against all odds, he’d made it, a flicker of the race’s spark seemed to return to the eyes of its current leader; the desire to avoid a de facto victory. “I hope he makes it.” was his closing remark.

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Beautiful Half-baked Bureaucracy

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As shutters began to close and shifts to conclude at Bari’s ticket office, Victor’s dot appeared. Now at 23:15, 15 minutes past the last available check-in, it looked as if the chaser might not be so lucky as the leader – his window of opportunity was swiftly closing. Just one booth remained unshuttered, and its occupants were squaring reams of paper and arranging their affairs; a caricature of a closing office. It looked as though Victor had missed the boat on his dreams of a GC victory. 

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But the rising racket of an approaching ratchet seemed destined to prove otherwise. Arriving, assuaged, already floating in the buoyant waters of relief, Victor freewheeled towards the ticket office. “I am just so happy to be here,” he murmured, the sound feathered with weary bliss.  

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Attracting the attention now of the office official, our small party evoked a sharp shake of her head. She pointed – pointedly – at her watch. “We’re done, finished.” came the decree. Victor, unperturbed, approached the desk. Perhaps, he already knew that, in the world of Italian bureaucracy, every yes begins with a no. 

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Then came a rap on the glass from the booth’s other occupant. A curt command. Passaporte. And with that, the bike race resumed. 

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An Important Reminder

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Elsewhere on the continent, 297 other riders have also been putting down some of the rides of their lives, in pursuit of their own European traverse. Stories of elation and despair have abounded; resolve has been tested. But the TCR, when all is said and done, is still a race. And the story of this race has, today, possessed a singular focus: the dash for the ferry. Stories from elsewhere in the pack will resume tomorrow; to hear more from Day 7 throughout the rest of the field, check out the Lost Dot Podcast.

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Scratch Report

Charlie Gaut (109) – Rider scratched 7:00 CEST 4/8 via WhatsApp due to saddle sores.

Jefferson Adams (191) – Rider scratched 10:17 CEST 4/8 via WhatsApp due to commitments at home.

Paul Airs (032) – Rider scratched 16:25 CEST 3/8 via email due to knee pain.

Alexander Stojkovic (123) – Rider scratched 18:49 CEST 3/8 via WhatsApp due to illness.

Tom Dockal (275) – Rider scratched 18:52 CEST 3/8 via WhatsApp - no reason given.

James Luther (248) – Rider scratched 13:45 CEST 3/8 via email due to a family matter at home.

Alexander Von Versen (327) –Rider scratched 11:37 CEST 3/8 via email - no reason given.

Bastien Sentubery (384b) – Rider scratched 10:20 CEST 3/8 via email due to fatigue.

Mylene Vicente (384a) – Rider scratched 10:20 CEST 3/8 via email due to fatigue.

Thoralf Friedrich (364) – Rider scratched 10:01 CEST 3/8 via email due to bronchitis.

Kamen Petrov (111) – Rider scratched 10:12 CEST 3/8 via WhatsApp - no reason given.

Pawel Pulawski (007) – Rider scratched 7:22 CEST 3/8 via SMS due to saddle discomfort.

Antoine Cessac (230) – Rider scratched 8:32 CEST 3/8 due to matters at home that need him there.

Nic Gharbaoui (130) – Rider scratched 7:14 CEST 3/8 via WhatsApp due to illness.

Pablo Villar Arribi (326) – Rider scratched 6:32 CEST 3/8 via WhatsApp due to knee pain.

Oliver Neumann (370) – Rider scratched 21:01 CEST 2/8 via WhatsApp due to fatigue.

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*Having lost his backup mech hanger shortly before the race, and without time to replace the proprietary part before travelling to Santiago de Compostela, Nicolas Chatelet (046) attempted to source a spare in Santiago. Unsuccessful, he ordered the part online to be delivered to a locker in Carcassonne. He placed this order before the race began. This is a clear violation of the guidance around support, specifically the shipping of supplies. He was unaware of this transgression. Not having needed to use this spare hanger so far, Nicolas has gained no advantage in the race, and handed the part over to the Race Director at the fourth control, thus resolving the matter. Despite having planned to pre-ship sports nutrition from his sponsors to ease the financial impact of the race, Nicolas asserts he had not managed to do so.

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