Winter Endurance Training Ride To Arundel Castle – PLUS I’m Racing The Transcontinental Race!

Hello and welcome back! In this video I am out for a Sunday winter training ride around the south coast once again. This time to the beautiful town of Arundel! This one far more civilised than last week, colder than last week but went far smoother. Yes you read that right, I am racing the TCR! So excited…

If you want to see the ride from today – https://www.strava.com/activities/10557811126
https://www.lostdot.cc/race-brand/transcontinental

0:00 Intro
2:44 JONTY!
3:12 More Floods
5:57 The South Downs
9:07 The TCR
18:34 Arundel

I’m racing the 10th edition of the Transcontinental [Applause] race good morning welcome to another Ultra cycling related video if you’re already subscribed thanks for coming back if this is your first video I’m Andy I’m an ultra cyclist on the south coast of the UK from Portsmouth down there the videos I make are about Ultra cycling training and

Adventures so if you have endurance goals of your own subscribe follow along I’m sure there’ll be something in there for you if not maybe you teach me something on the menu for today got a pretty standard winter endurance training ride about 100 miles roughly out to a place called

Arendel which is not too far from where I live it’s a pretty beautiful place a historical town built around a medieval castle so getting medieval today I’ll also talk a bit about the race my main race for 2024 is finally buttoned down now down I paid my deposit it’s 4,000 km

Long pretty long way furthest I’ve ever been so I talk a bit about the logistics of organizing something like that how a race like that even works so if you’ve ever been tempted to do an event that long stick Around Ah Ah Ah when I was planning in this route I heard Rumblings that the flooding was pretty bad this is crazy it’s like a Ford usually bone dry and it hasn’t rained here for a little while now Bonkers Got a pretty typical January morning for this ride temperatures hovering around 0° cius so pretty cold again bit colder than last week but it’s absolutely beautiful I live really close to the South Downs National Park as soon as I leave Portsmouth head over that Hill ports

Down hill you saw earlier you’re in the South Downs if you don’t know the south of the UK not from the south of England you might not know the southdowns but it’s gorgeous reminds me quite a bit of hobbiton in the Shire once you get into the small villages thatch

Roofs beautiful really takes your mind off of the numb toes sort Of the South Downs is basically uh original line that rises up from sea level then extends all the way most of the way across the south of England and today I’ll be pretty much hugging it west to east all the way along to arendall up and over back on the coastal

Side just love Flat you might have heard of the South Down’s way maybe that’s a 100 mile hiking trail hiking and Mountain by trail from Winchester all the way over to East borwn along the top of the ridge line all the way it’s amazing I think it’s part of my training for my

Race I’ll be making use of that for sure maybe on a road bike because I might need to if you you haven’t heard of the South TOS way and you’re anywhere near the south of England it’s definitely worth it for a gravel ride or cross country

Bike loads of gravel bikes do it and it’s Amazing Yes All roads here are absolutely trashed still covered in mud flowing water across the roads hasn’t rained for about maybe 2 weeks since the really heavy downpours and there’s still so much water if you up in the north let me know what it’s like up there cuz we normally get it pretty

Mildly down here and it’s pretty Bad taste like my heart has been destroyed I know that you there’s something in the water I feel it taking all for me it’s slowly getting Hard on to some pretty exciting news I alluded to earlier for a few weeks I mentioned I’ve been getting my races in order for 2024 and in the last few days finally had confirmation of what my main race will be I’m racing the 10 edition of the Transcontinental race and that it’s

Crazy to say out loud just gave me a shiver it’s a pretty big deal the TCR in general is huge and the 10th edition I’m really excited to get stuck into it I’m sure some watching this will know exactly what the TCR is but if you don’t the TCR is the definitive unsupported

Self-supported Road Race across Europe it’s roughly 4,000 km long you plan your own route so that can vary and approximately 250,000 ft of elevation again depends on the route you plot and how you would choose to attack it it is very strictly self-supported you cannot accept any support that isn’t

Commercially available to all Races if you break down you’re basically on your own to find your way to somewhere to pay to get a repair done make your way back to where you broke down and carry on if you’re low on food you can’t accept food from kind Stranges if you do you’re

Disqualified you have to contact the or organizers scratch disqualify yourself it’s very strict route wise it’s an open route race it has a start in rhay vome in France and it has a finish in Istanbul in Turkey outside of that you have checkpoints along the way that you have to

Hit there are also mandatory parkours which are roads routes or hi in paths or generally pretty horrible paths with amazing views and scenery but you have to hit those mandatory parkour probably the most exciting part of this Edition other than being the 10th edition this time the first time

The race goes into Asia Only Just Istanbul is where East Meets West half of the city is in Asia and half of it in Europe so the checkpoints for this Edition we start in the rube Vel Drome and if you know Perry rubbe you know the Vel Drome that race finishes that’s where we start we then pretty much make a be line almost toward turkey the next checkpoint after rube is in

Slovenia I can’t wait to see Slovenia I got friends that have been there and is gorgeous after that carry on Southeast towards Kosovo then Bosnia and then after that carry on towards Istanbul we hit the city of canak which takes us to a pretty awkward place really but

Canak it’s actually where the story of the Trojan horse originated that’s where that happened again be pretty cool to see that once we’re in canak there’s a big body of water we got to get around into the back of Istanbul and that whole section is in Asia it’s my

Life now for the next 6 months or so we’ll be planning my route replanting it planning it again tweaking it over and over the constant worry that I planed a crab route the whole time quite curious to see who turns up this time as well Kristoff straser won the last two

Editions I saw Josh ibert was considering coming back he won previously be really cool to see him there and I wonder who else it’s the 10th edition so I think it might bring a few outliers into the mix so time wise this takes the winners generally around

10 days I’m hoping I won’t be that far behind them but the likelihood of me winning something like that is pretty low I’m hoping to just make myself proud really making it to the end of that race alone is impressive spectating for an event like this is really fun actually on the face

Of it it sounds really boring it’s called watching and you essentially have a map Google Maps looks like Google Maps with hundreds of little GPS dots that update every few seconds and that’ll tell you someone’s stopped time moving time current speed some of the weather conditions where they

Are but it’s pretty brief information really when you tie that in with the community aspect a lot of the news and developments come from Facebook groups and chats information filtering out about people there was one woman did really well last year Maria really enjoyed watching her race again just a DOT on a

Map she was doing really well and actually raced with her at all points North and I remember her passing me south from the Scottish borders her white compression socks never saw her again so she’s very strong she got all the way to the end something like

Maybe 100k from the very end and crashed on mandatory parkour Gravel Road and nobody knew what was going on a DOT stopped and before you know it a DOT was in the hospital so we’re all worried and then eventually her partner came in to update everybody on exactly

What had happened that information feeds through quite gradually it’s way more exciting than it sounds but she didn’t finish in the end she was too injured she was considering resting up and then taking on the last 100K couldn’t do it so she’s at this time I have to find her and shake her

Hand what a hard nut so there we go that’s my main focus for 2024 my 40th birthday comes 2 days after the start so it’s quite a big year for me and I’m looking forward to spending my 4ye birthday probably riding through Slovenia over the next 6 7even months or

So the planning is going to be pretty intensive the training is going to be very intensive I’ve got other races leading up into it to help me build my build my fitness and my condition that’s my main goal so if you’re not already subscribed and you’re interested in the journey for

That kind of race then subscribe and follow I’ll be posting every week or so updates on how it’s going and at this point if you got any questions on the event or the planning I’ve still got a lot of it to come if you got any questions ask away I

Reply to every comment anyway I’m freezing right now so pretty close to arendel and not far from a cafe actually going to stop this time quite often I don’t just crack on but I want to stop today let’s go St danger all your legs and all I Good you got me paranoid the f I can Avo your GI to taste like poison my heart has been destroyed I know that you Joy watch me sh your voice I can’t your taste like poison my heart is been destroyed I know that you been Joy watch me sh Bo SC and I don’t know what’s happening and how how did it come to sh so danger are your Li I good you got me paranoid the I can aford your kid taste like Poison that was arendo prach stop really I’m too cold but the climb over from ambery Amberly is a really beautiful place and you can hire boats and go between ambery and arendall and P the castle it’s really worth in the summer months making time to stop there and

Spend a bit of time today is too cold and the cafe is about 3 mil away so I’m more interested in coffee and cake that was the final climb though which is good news quite a long one about 2 mil long downhill now to the coast pretty much

And and then flat all the way back home brilliant ah that some good coffee and cake it’s a pro tip for you if the cafe has a coffee roaster on the site that roast their own beans it’s going to be some good coffee it’s got about 2 hours now to get

Home roughly slight headwind all the way back but not too bad just going to be a bit chilly I think so it could be Raining Be back in for it’s the end of the ride the camera’s died on me so on my phone sorry if this crap sound yeah finished 95 miles pretty decent train of ride in the books have a good week I’ll see you out next week uh have a social event for the TCR

In London so I have to figure out how to get to that if you go into that then I’ll see you there I think it’s about a 50 60k ride somewhere out of central anyway have a good week see you on the next One ah