Daryl Goes Transcontinental

Judith Rout

2 years ago

If you know Daryl Collis at all, you’ll know he’s an epic cyclist. This summer, he and his friend Michiel (who has just joined WVCC) took on the job of staffing a control point in this years transcontinental race. The checkpoint was in Turkey and when they’d finished there was the small matter of cycling home….

The Transcontinental is a single stage race in which the clock never stops. Riders plan, research and navigate their own course and choose when and where to rest. They take only what they can carry and consume only what they can find. Four mandatory control points guide their route and ensure a healthy amount of climbing to reach some of cycling’s most beautiful and historic monuments. This year the race started at the Roubaix velodrome in France and finished on the Asian side of the city of Istanbul.

Here’s an extract from Daryl’s blog of his adventure. You can read more here: Turkey #TCRNo10, July 2024 – Tales from the Saddle (wordpress.com)

Part One: Turkey

We made our submissions, (to staff control point 4) and they got accepted. Now all we had to do was arrange to get to Çanakkale, then the simple bit, sort out a route home. Oh….and ride the 3000km plus home. While on the flight to Lanzarote in April, Michiel had noticed that they did a flight to the Greek island of Lesvos, just off the Turkish coast. From there a ferry takes you to Ayvalik on the Asian mainland in Turkey. This became part one of our journey and enabled us to get CP4 in Çanakkale within two days.

We landed on the island of Lesvos at around 11:00 local time with a ferry port only 8km away. So, we had plenty of time to build the bikes, and get used to the massive temperature difference, a scorching 37⁰C after leaving the UK at about 15⁰C. The ferry to Turkey was busy and took about 90 minutes, dropping us at the Turkish border control where we slipped out into Turkish traffic.

We woke up on the 25th July with two days to cover the 240km to Çanakkale so we could arrive by Friday 27th July, ready to start work at 04:00 on the 28th July.

The first day we set off with the intention of using secondary roads to avoid traffic. That was a big mistake as most secondary roads are just gravel, mud or very badly maintained cobbles. By mid-day we had already swapped to main highways where possible, and to be honest they were mainly traffic free.

On day two, on a long uphill stretch, Michiel disappeared from sight, and when I got to the left junction we were supposed to take he was nowhere to be seen. I assumed he had turned left, and I tried to chase him down. After 10km I realised he must have gone straight on at the last junction and not having any phone connection, the only thing left to do was stick to the route I knew until I reach the hotel in Çanakkale.

When I got to the hotel there was sign of Michiel, but he arrived 20 minutes later. We had learned a lesson about keeping within sight of each other all the time. If anything serious had happened to either of us we would have had no way of letting the other know.

This hotel would be our base now until the 4th August, when the control point, CP4, would close.

We had to wait until 15:05 on the 28th July before eventual winner, Robin Gemperle arrived at CP4 for his stamp. Calm, cool and very collected, he got his CP4 stamp, filled his bottles, used the bathroom, asked where he could get food, then put all of his devices on charge. Within twenty minutes he was back out through the door, as if he had just popped in for a coffee on his Sunday 50km ride. Amazing to see. It was 15 hours later when the second rider came through.

It was a couple of days before we started seeing riders come into the CP looking very broken. Riders on road tyres with road pedals, suffering from repeated punctures and broken cleats from having to walk on the compulsory gravel parcours.

We had a couple of days when the timing worked for us, and we were able to get rides in locally. We wanted to visit ANZAC Cove on the European side of the Dardanelles Strait. Edging along the coast we eventually came to the memorials and site of the battle for Gallipoli in WW1. It was a very thought-provoking ride, seeing the battle ground these people fought on and the number of tributes to troops from this time.

At 23:59 EST on 4th August we closed Control Point 4 having stamped only 165 of the 300+ starters cards, all of whom went on to complete the event. However, adjustments have been made since then regarding the use of banned roads and unofficial assistance, so the finishers list is much smaller.

By 06:30 on the 4th August Michiel and I were heading for the 07:00 ferry into Europe in order to ride the north side of the Dardanelles heading north into Turkey and our journey back from Asia to Leicestershire. We didn’t know what was to come, but we were excited about the prospect.

To be continued………..

Remember you can read a full account here: Turkey #TCRNo10, July 2024 – Tales from the Saddle (wordpress.com)

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