In July and August 2017 I will be racing the Transcontinental Race in the pairs category with my friend Jo. The race is roughly 4000km long across 9 countries - Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Possibly 10 or 11 countries if we route through Luxembourg and/or France to get into Germany. We'll have to cross multiple (very) lumpy bits of Europe - Alps, Dolomites, Carpathian and Balkan mountain ranges - something like 40,000 metres of climbing (4.5 Everests, or 300ish Ditchling Beacons). We aim to finish the race within 14 days which means averaging at least 285km a day.

The driving force for entering this race was the loss of a friend and endurance cyclist to cancer a couple of years ago so we decided to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

You can follow the story of our preparation and race at;

http://www.themanfromicon.net

http://road.cc/content/contributor/vecchiojo

For Jenn

For Dylan

For Rich