@CrinklyUncle has scratched, in Austria northbound.
I'm incredibly proud of quite how unbelievably far beyond his comfort zone he has pushed himself. It's about 8 years since he came out on his first (another) forum ride - a 30odd mile night ride from the rally in York, led by my EldestCub who at the time would have been about 9, which my sister rode on a hand-me-down shopper bike and her (then) FWHTBAB (friend who happens to be a boy) rode on his slick-shod hardtail. A better bike and some mild audaxing followed, then a road bike and more audaxing leading to a heroic ride around the 2013 LEL, finishing with a handful of minutes in hand. Illness during the qualifiers put paid to hopes for PBP 2015, but he came back for LEL 2017 (a married man by then!) and made it look almost easy - even quite like fun.
TCR is a whole new level of hard. No cosy controls with volunteers to mollycoddle you every few hours, riding through multiple countries (often in one day) and a distance roughly equivalent to one and a half LELs before you even get to the turn in Poland and start riding south towards the end. Not to mention the elevations.
I _think_ that, apart from a little tourist bimble round Paris with my l'il sis, his nephews and me, this _might_ have been the first time he ever rode a bike overseas. I reckon that's quite an impressive way to try it out.
I'm incredibly proud of quite how unbelievably far beyond his comfort zone he has pushed himself. It's about 8 years since he came out on his first (another) forum ride - a 30odd mile night ride from the rally in York, led by my EldestCub who at the time would have been about 9, which my sister rode on a hand-me-down shopper bike and her (then) FWHTBAB (friend who happens to be a boy) rode on his slick-shod hardtail. A better bike and some mild audaxing followed, then a road bike and more audaxing leading to a heroic ride around the 2013 LEL, finishing with a handful of minutes in hand. Illness during the qualifiers put paid to hopes for PBP 2015, but he came back for LEL 2017 (a married man by then!) and made it look almost easy - even quite like fun.
TCR is a whole new level of hard. No cosy controls with volunteers to mollycoddle you every few hours, riding through multiple countries (often in one day) and a distance roughly equivalent to one and a half LELs before you even get to the turn in Poland and start riding south towards the end. Not to mention the elevations.
I _think_ that, apart from a little tourist bimble round Paris with my l'il sis, his nephews and me, this _might_ have been the first time he ever rode a bike overseas. I reckon that's quite an impressive way to try it out.
