Anna Haslock
It's not actually up for debate Neil. You signed up to a race with a clearly described off road parcours. There have been off road parcours on the Transcontinental Race since 2014...
I think mostly this shows ignorance of cycling. Yes. Under Mike there was unpaved sections of parcour. But they are (at least this is my understanding) best described as "fast rolling gravel roads". It may slow you slightly if you have 25mm slicks. But you'll still make good progress and it won't be dangerous.
Then we get 2018 edition. The first one without Mike. That parcour in Serbia. I don't think anyone managed to ride all the way up it. In the race. One guy left his bike at the bottom and just walked up with his tracker. When it was suggested it was a bit extreme. I was told Juliana and Emily had ridden up it just fine. Sure. But that wasn't with a 3000km run up...
Then we go to 2019. CP2 parcour, again in Serbia. Again did anyone actually manage to ride the whole boulder field. I mean route? I've only seen pictures of people carrying bikes over large rocks.
And then 2022. CP4. Given the number of incredibly skilled riders who crashed. The fact that the fastest time of anyone was about 4 hours. And most were 6+. Shows that it was inappropriate for an event like this. Esp with such a long run up.
There is a wider issue among the cycling industry/community that we haven't actually worked out what gravel actually means. And it covers everything from the white roads of the Strada bianci, up to what ever the fuck that road in Serbia in 2017 was, and more.
One of the reasons I don't think I'll take another go at the TCR (aside from the massive time commitment it requires to train) is this attitude that all off road is the same. It's always had off road. So fuck it lets give you a section straight out of the silk road mountain race, hike abike with 3000k run up!
I hope the new race director will have a better understanding of what gravel is and isn't. What makes a good parcour. And what doesn't.
The distance is the challenge. There's no need to make it even harder by throwing in gratuitously hard sections.
J