THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RACE
story

The Transcontinental Race no.4 is almost over.
244 starters, with 182 solo riders and 31 pairs, spreaded all over Europe from the legendary Muur in Geraardsbergen (Belgium) until the asian side of the Dardanelles riding alone with no external assistance and no defined routes. The only mandatory passages were at the four check points along the road: from Clermont-Ferrand to the Col de Ceyssat (France), from Grindelwald to Furkapass (Switzerland), from Alleghe to Passo Giau (Italy) and across the Durmitor National Park in Montenegro. An extreme, tough and amazing ride thorughout a whole continent, crossing borders and discovering unknown places, climbing mountains and getting lost in cities, pedalling under the warm Sun or in heavy wind and rainstorms.

It has been a battled race, with the Belgian Kristoff Allegaert winning for the third time in just 9 days, but it has been even more an epic adventure. The Transcontinental is still a young race, but it has already cemented its reputation as one of the most demanding and fascinating events of ultra-cycling worldwide. The riders’ trip was tracked by GPS and followed by hundreds of “dot-watchers” worldwide, checking minute by minute their movements on the map of Europe, discussing their route choices and discovering their different paces in a crazy way of sport watching, somehow drastically different from the most famous sport TV shows. An ancestral way of imagination mixed with oral tales, and of course tweets, blogs and social network pics and videos shared by the riders themselves.

PEdALED’s rider Jacopo Porreca completed its Transcontinental on Wednesday night in 17th position, after 12 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes of race. He rode for 3693 km, with 40779 m of elevation gain, its average speed was 23 km/h with a peak of 83 km/h on some crazy Balkan’s descent. Had just one puncture and one fall while getting off the bike exhausted, crossed 11 borders (Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey), slept in more than a dozen different places (hotels, bars, bus stops, public gardens and road sides), lost around 4 kilos but ate a ton of burgers, candies, croissants, snacks, sandwiches and more misterious kinds of junk food. But its most tasty meal has been a warm beer with chips on the ferry that crosses the Dardanelles till Çanakkale, that tasted of pure cycling satisfaction.

PEdALED followed the race since the beginning, check for our photos, videos and tales on Facebook and Instagram pages. And more datailed stories will come soon. Stay tuned, and start training for Transcontinental no.5 in 2017.

Take the chance to wear the PEdAL ED Transcontinental Spirit with the new TCR4 collection