9 solo riders, 3 pairs, 4 checkpoints, 380+ kilometers and 24 hours: those are the ingredients of the long race home, a cycling challenge for the adventurous. All cyclists carry a gps tracker, broadcasting their location every minute. Follow them live on this page. The challenge starts on .
The long race home is a cycling challenge for amateur cyclists. Cyclists take on the challenge without any support and with minimal guidance: there is a start and finish point and four checkpoints. The time limit is 24 hours.
Unsupported means that cyclists are not allowed to use family or friends to gain help, nor to make arrangements in advance. Drafting is not permitted so all cyclists have the same chance of reaching the finish line. Checkpoint registration happens with GPS trackers and self registration by camera. Cyclists take part on their own responsibility, the TLRH2016 only arranges transport to the start and some service at the finish.
This is not a charity driven event. However since our website and riders attract a decent amount of attention, we have decided to donate all profit to Open Kamp Antwerp. Open Kamp is a project by Scouts en gidsen Vlaanderen to offer sociably vulnerable children a chance to be a child and experience a holiday. It is completely driven by (young) volunteers who often are leaders in "ordinary" scouting groups as well.
You can donate via the button below, you can organise a similar organisation in your region or, if you live nearby, you can visit our finish event (check on facebook), drink some good beer and donate while doing so :-).
TLRH isn't a race, it is a challenge and that is important: in a race there is only one winner, people race against someone. In a challenge cyclists fight their mind and body, finishing within the time limit is the goal. Finding food, water and carefully planning the route are all part of the challenge and might prove vital. That being said, when the battle with your mind is over, there is always the question "how did I do?", so there is time registration.
TLRH is a pretty straightforward copy of the worldfamous Transcontinental Race. It's aim is to be more accessible, yet offer a similar level of adventure, albeit in a shorter timespan. For this the first event checkpoints were chosen to allow cyclists to use B-roads or biketrails as the weather might be extremly bad. This slightly reduces the available navigation options, but was a tradeoff we made to increase safety.
This year we switched to trackers developed by Legendstracking, they are lighter than spot trackers and don't use satelite communcation, instead they rely on cellular networks for communication, yet feature a 3000 tracking points buffer to cover short-term network loss. Datafable still offers us support and hosting.
