Bike Race Across Europe - TCR09
Louise Johnston is raising money for 24x7 SPECIAL NEEDS HOLIDAY TRUST
Story
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
Thank you everyone for all your donations. Our adventure is complete.
If you would still like to donate we are accepting donations until the 5th sept 2023.
We are racing as a pair in The Transcontinental, a 4000km unsupported race across Europe, to raise money for charity, one of our chosen charities and motivation for this race is The Centre Algarve.
https://centrealgarve.org/
We are raising money so children with disabilities and SEND needs (special education needs and disabilities) can holiday where otherwise they can’t due to lack of support, lack of finances and due to lack of facilities. Families with mixed mainstream and SEN children can’t usually holiday because not all the needs of the family are taken care of. At Centre Algarve all the needs of children are met and families can holiday in a safe and supported environment in the sun!
Founder and CEO of the charity 24 x 7 Special Needs Holiday Trust Andy Mahoney discovered that there was not a single holiday centre, in Europe where a family with a member that has special needs, learning difficulties or physical disabilities could holiday together in a safe, secure and specifically fitted out amenity. He saw for himself that many laid claim they could ‘modify’ rooms or facilities but in truth this often meant that compromise had to be made with beds, shower or bathrooms and other sometimes basic or modest requirements; very often it meant that any interaction with other guests or holiday makers was in many cases almost impossible for the family to holiday together. For many families with children with challenging needs, holidays are non-existent.
I joined 24x7 ltd in 2020 as the Area Director for Gloucestershire, running home-school specialist transport for SEN Children and vulnerable adults. I quickly became excited when I heard about the Centre and the positive impact it had on families and wanted to learn how I could use my love of endurance sports to become an ambassador for the charity, raise money, and raise awareness of the lack of holiday facilities for families with SEN needs...
As a result myself and my partner Carlo Mascia are taking part in the toughest unsupported Ultra distance road race in the world, The Transcontinental.
The ninth year of the Transcontinental will be a challenging ultra race, with over 50,000m of climbing over testing terrain. This is not a test for the faint hearted! The race returns to the cobbles of the Muur van Geraardsbergen, a famous climb section in The Flanders cycle race. The atmosphere created by the townspeople, families and friends sending off the challengers is electric. Having visited the event in 2022 to wave off two of our friends and try the famous cobbled climb for ourselves, we fell in love with the idea of doing the TCR in 2023, and that trip in the hot summer of 2022 was the start of many adventures to come, long hours of planning and training; Geraardsbergen makes the perfect start to our epic adventure.
There are four compulsory check points and parcours (sectons to test us that include hike-a-bike) and cut off times to try to beat, so the pressure is on to carefully plan a time efficient route that enables us to maximise our strengths, resupply, find safe places to rest our tired bodies for a few hours. River crossings and closed bridges have caught many out in previous events, wasting hours and even whole days.
The route takes us across the length of the Alps, zig-zagging across the Swiss and Italian borders, over the high cols and through the steeply-gorged valleys of the now famous San Bernardino and Splugen Passes before plunging to Chiavenna, at the foot of the Maloja Pass.
Our next check point is through the verdant valleys of the Slovenian Alps, the quiet and little known roads of Zgornje Jezersko. The Carinthian region will challenge us with rugged peaks to climb, dense forest and abundant wildlife. Steep gradients and a variety of terrains and road surfaces, this enchanting corner of the continent will challenge our skill and kit selection. The section will include broken up roads and rough hewn rock before returning to tarmac again, this will be first real test of hardiness of our endurance bike and kit setups.
We continue on to check point 3 and delve deeper into the heart of Albania; deep into a land where forgotten, ancient trade routes criss-cross between peaks and expansive valleys.
Resupplying will be sparse and stray dogs rife, as we travel through tiny villages and past wind-eroded cliffs before taking the ancient route through the mountains to Peshkopi. Here, careful and intelligent planning, and reliable navigation devices could spell the difference between success and failure.
We head to Meteora check point 4 for our penultimate brevet card stamp - Meteora hosted the finishes of TCRNo5 and TCRNo6. A UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its towering pillars of rock on which 24 monasteries historically perched precipitously above the valley below.
We then begin the final leg of our journey to Thessaloniki, on the shores of the Aegean Sea, where the city of Thessaloniki will mark the end of our grueling race, having started thousands of kilometres away in the comforts of familiar Belgium. Our aim is to be competitive and finish in a strong position, but getting within the cut off time is important to make the famous finishers party (where the riders are too tired to hold a beer glass) and get on the official finishers list.
We invite you to support us and our chosen charity by donating as much as you can.
Follow us throughout the race on lost dot, where you can track our progress, the clock never stops, every second we are racing, so planning of our route, planning our re-supply, taking care of mechanicals and kit is all part of the race.
An ultra distance cycle race of team work, mental toughness, strategy and planning, and we have to be pretty good at turning the pedals too!
How to follow us. #TCR09 Race starts July 2023.
1. THE LIVE TRACKING MAP
Keep an eye on the live Transcontinental tracking map via the TCR homepage. Follow My Challenge uses rider trackers to plot everyone’s live locations and provide an overview of the Race across Europe. Click on a rider dot and it’ll give you more information, detail and individual statistics. We’ll also have the official Transcontinental Leaderboard alongside.
2. THE DAILY RACE REPORT
Each morning, we’ll publish a Race Report of the prior 24-hours’ action - everything from the podium-chasers, to stories from the mid-pack, to the efforts and progress at the tail-end. Alongside the podcasts, this is the daily shot you need to catch up with the Race each day, it just so happens to be released around morning coffee-time…
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