cyrmanj

Found this on https://www.cpofficial.com/

Starting in Cabo de Roca on the west coast of Portugal, Sean is attempting to cycle 4,500 miles across Europe, finishing at the Russian town of Ufa in less than 25 days. The attempt is unsupported, meaning Sean will be carrying all of his kit with him along the way.

He would need to average 180 miles per day during 25 days!

You can follow him live here: https://www.yellowjersey.co.uk/sean-conway-cycling-world-record-attempt/

P.S.: hope this is not a repost.

Brian25

Not exactly what I would consider a noteworthy record. Sometimes I think that I will post that I broke the world record for racing around a toilet in my own driveway. Wow look at me -- world record holder. Seriously now exactly how many others have done this, who is he going to beat??? Is he beating Wiggins, Froom. Yea- I didn't think so.

DrIsotope

So events like the RAAM aren't worthy efforts because guys like Froome don't do them? Guys like Froome don't do them because it's not their specialty, and they would not be very good at it.

4500 miles in 25 days... is a serious achievement. The Tour de France covers around 2,200 miles in 3 weeks, with a couple of rest days, and never does more than 133 miles in a day. Completely different type of riding Conway is doing.

Brian25

O.k. as you said it it's a ride, not a race no other competitors, his own start/ stop locations. and again who is he racing exactly breakink record(s) of...?? FYI there is a girl who rides something like 180 miles a day 365 days a year down in Florida. Back to my world record holding around a toilet bowl. Isn't there some limit on "world record holding", when you say impressive - yes - world record holding ride with his own start/ finish. NO, Sorry, but I scream fowl.

DrIsotope

He's racing against the 29d18h25m time set by James McLaren in 2016. There is absolutely a course, Conway did not pick the route. It goes from Cabo de Roca in Portugal to Ufa in Russia.

That "girl" was Amanda Coker, who set the HAM'R (Highest Annual Mileage) record last year: 86,573 miles in 365 days. She wasn't "racing" against anyone either. All she did was average 237 miles a day, every single day, for a year.

Just because you don't know anything about Ultra-Endurance Cycling doesn't make their efforts any less valid.

Happy Feet

Yeah.. unless one is going to go out and put that amount of work into a project I'm not so impressed by the looking down ones nose at another's effort.

4500miles in 25 days - long distance/endurance sub forum. Sounds like the right spot for it

unterhausen

I sincerely doubt Froome or anyone else in the pro peloton could do this without a giant peloton and a big team of riders to support him and a caravan of cars. None of which are allowed. Early days of RAAM saw at least one ex-pro winner, but his efforts have been eclipsed by long distance specialists.

if you just want to talk about pro road racing of the traditional (slowly dying) variety, there is another forum you can hang out in.
This happened in the Coker threads too. Strangely, nobody is out trying to break her records. I say strangely, because it's apparently quite easy to do.

OldTryGuy

How about here in the good old USA, but only 4,300 miles in 17 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes of unsupported miles https://transambikerace.com/results/#content-wrapper

Boss Lady wife of 45 years this June 2nd said I could try it next year as long as there was someone else riding with me. NO DRAFTING or assistance of course.

DrIsotope

I'm wondering if the greater amount of time required to complete the Trans-Euro is at least in part due to having to cross through like 9 countries? No passport required to cross the US. The US race is 4,200-4,300 miles (depending on year) and over 160,000ft of elevation-- so those guys are doing around 240 miles and 10,000 vertical feet per day. Conway is "only" looking to do around 180 miles a day. I do wonder how much of his route through Russia is chosen not for directness, but more for "I don't want to die here."

Happy Feet

Well, let's hope no one tries to diminish the attempt if you do

John_V 

I'm sure others have tried this route in the past and failed. And if successful, the person he beats is the current record holder. If ultra cycling is so easy, why haven't Froom, Wiggins or any other pro cyclist attempted it? If riding 230 to 260 miles a day, 365 days a year through hurricanes, tropical storms with winds of 40 mph and the Florida heat and maintain a 20-24 mph average speed over that entire distance isn't noteworthy, then what Froom and Wiggins are doing is child's play. To me, your posts sound like the typical pro wannabe who is under the impression that "if you have a road bike and you're not racing, you aren't doing crap." Maybe you should try some ultra cycling and see if it isn't noteworthy.

Oh! And the girl in Florida, Amanda Coker, is now doing time trials. In her 5th ever time trial, she became the new Florida State Woman's Time Trial Champion. I guess that's not very noteworthy either?

CliffordK

One thing that Amanda Coker did was her route was almost entirely flat. There have been other HAMR attempts (successful and not), also choosing courses by wind and terrain.

I'm not seeing the actual course for this trip, but here is a reverse course on RWGP (only 3900 miles).

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/23075651

It seems to indicate several hills through Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, and Czechia.

Total climbing by RWGPS is about 143,100 ft

Plus, mostly self supported (no drafting?), it is a different ride than the HAMR attempts.

DrIsotope

I've said since she first started her attempt that Coker was doing it in the smartest way possible. Her route minimized elevation changes, eliminated the need for chase/support vehicles, and allowed her to sleep in her own bed every night. She was doing an annual mileage challenge-- no other factors mattered. I also think that her TBI was more of an advantage than a hindrance, because there is a very short list of people that can do 12,000 laps around the same park without going insane. That list actually only has one person on it.

I'd be interested to see what external factors come into play with Trans-Europe vs. Trans-America. I mean, the US take ~8 days fewer for similar distance and greater elevation change.

antimonysarah

IIRC Trans Am also allows pairs (they can work together but cannot work with anyone else, they are their own category for the standings), so you could ride with someone else that way.

OldTryGuy

YES, drafting is allowed for PAIRS but my endeavor would be to complete without drafting but have company, in other words, riding like I did for my Ironman triathlons with distance between.

Rules for pairs
Pairs are a self supported unit allowed to share any and all resources within the unit. The rules are the same as for solo racers with one all encompassing exception. That exception being that support is allowed between the paired racers. The pair may share resources, navigation duties, as well as being allowed to draft and tow etc… Paired racers essentially joined at the hip or in tandem across the country. Pairs do not have to travel exclusively with each other, solo riding is allowed, but both riders must reach the end of the route before the pair is deemed finished.
Paired racers may not draft other pairs or interfere with solo racers in any way.
Paired racers must both carry a tracker. If one of the pair quits the race, the other is allowed to continue to finish and may be ranked in the GC with an asterisk denoting paired travel.
To clarify, paired racers start together, ride together, and hopefully finish together. Drafting is allowed between the pair as well as sharing all other resources. These features are what distinguish paired riders from solo riders.

alois

The route through Europe crosses only one serious border: the border between Lithuania and Russia. All the other borders can be passed almost unnoticed (European Union).

DrIsotope

So is it the roads? I'm genuinely curious as to why the Tran-Euro covers over 70 fewer miles per day at the current record-holder pace, relative to the Trans-America. The total elevation gain seems to be very close for both.

unterhausen

It's possible it's just a matter of lack of the right rider. The TABR has gotten much faster as people learned how to ride it. Also, the elevation might not tell the whole story. If the TABR route had the same elevation gain, but the topology was similar to that of the eastern U.S. instead of Rockies then flat, we might see a slower race. Just speculating. I know I find the rockies easier to climb than the smaller, steeper hills back east.

StephenH

Not a specific answer-
But if it was up to me, the RAAM record would be about 30 days.
How much it gets improved over that, just depends largely on how unreasonably people are willing to treat themselves.
If you have a lot of people trying really hard to do it for years and years, then yes, some excellent cyclist will stay on the bike for 22 hours a day and set a humdinger of a record.
If it's an occasional rider that has a go at it without any competition, there's not nearly so much motivation to punish oneself.


It reminds me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's competing with the Russian bear in the circus. Bugs says he'll dive 100' into a pool of water. The bear says he'll dive 200' into a bucket of water. Bugs says he'll dive 500' into a wet sponge. And the bear says he'll dive one thousand feet, into a block of cement. So it seems to me that the European race is in the bucket-of-water stage, and RAAM is more in the wet-sponge stage.

joewein

The only land borders Russia shares with the EU are with 1) Finland, 2) Estonia, 3) Latvia and 4) around the Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. To get from Lithuania to Russia proper in the east you'd have to cross either Latvia or Belarus.

Neither Jonas Deichmann in 2017 nor Sean Conway in 2018 passed through Lithuania. Both took a more southerly route, crossing from Poland into Ukraine. James McLaren's east-west route passed from Russia through Belarus into Poland. So they would have had at least two significant borders to cross, not just one.

Still, I doubt that the border crossings are the major explanation for the difference in average speeds.