Author: Jan-Willem Bobbink

5 days before the start I arrived in Perth so I had some time to get used to the weather coming straight out of the Dutch winter. Welcomed by a happy, Swedish taxi driver, I felt home immediately. Within 3 minutes she was warning me for all the dangerous wildlife that I would face during my stay. During preparation I did some research about the actual dangers and it seemed OK to just camp at the side of the road and not have to worry at all. Luckily the focus shifted from spiders & snakes to the notable increase in the number of deadly shark and truck driver incidents the past few years. This gave me some comfort, knowing I wouldn’t be riding in any known shark territories!

Continue reading Enjoying autumn weather – #IPWR Race Report: Day 1 to 3 – 1310km

Next weeks I’ll be racing across the United States of America! You’ll be able to follow me again through my social media and the GPS tracking can be found on http://trackleaders.com/transam17 Next to that the main Facebook group can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/524758520982933/ And I will try to post a few pictures on Instagram and upload my ride data on Strava daily.

The course will be though: 6730km and over 50.000 meters of climbing. I’m curious how my body will react to the lower oxygen levels when climbing into Colorado. We’ll be riding above 3000m heights, so lets see what happens. The weather forecasts are great for me: 16 degrees Celsius, Rainy and cold at night. The first big climb still needs to be cleared (see header image) so adventure is garantueed anyway 🙂

Trans Am Bike Race Gear list

No change in gear this time, so if you want to know what I’ll be using, check out Gear list Transcontinental Race

After a great night of sleep, I woke up a bit late without any real motivation to start riding like crazy. Anyway, tracker was working again so I had no excuse but to get on my bike and move my lazy ass. With 1030KM to go and four days until the finishers party and great weather, I expected it would be an easy ride to the finish.
Continue reading I love it when a plan comes together, also when it doesn’t – Transcontinental Race: Day 13 to 16

Waking up while knowing you could have a easy warm-up by descending 80 kilometres into Italy was good for the mind. After 60km I bumped into the Belgian TCR veteran Rudy Rollenberg and we agreed that we deserved some fresh cake, coffee and coke. Felt good being able to talk Dutch and exchange a few thoughts about the race.

New at the blog? Read the previous parts first:

• Transcontinental Day 1-4: Enjoying France!
• Epic mountains, rain nor MTB tracks can stop me! Transcontinental day 5 -9

Continue reading What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – Transcontinental Race: Day 9 to 12

Snakes, spiders and kangaroos: starting March 18th, I’ll race from West to East across Australia during the first edition of the Indian Pacifc Wheel Race.

The course is set: 5300 kilometres of pure awesomeness. Highlights will be:

The desert (incl the Nullarbor Plain) – 1200km of loneliness

Rolling hills of the famous wine districts of South Australia

The iconic Great Ocean Road

The Australian Alps

Jesse explains a bit about the things we can expect on the route:

Official website: Indianpacificwheelrace.com

During a presentation in Milan a few weeks back, Mike Hall presented the checkpoints for next years edition. No doubt about signing up, this edition will be  4000 kilometers of guaranteed fun again.

Continue reading Transcontinental Race 2017 – Less mountains, more speed!

4 days have passed since I left Geraardsbergen and the upcoming hours would determine the outcome of the race. Since I knew it would be a tough and long day in the mountains I got a few hours of extra sleep and made use of the hotel breakfast. I knew many riders were already up and tackling the first pass of the day. For me, the dots on the Trackleader maps were targets for the upcoming 24 hours. The scenery was awesome and within two hours I had finished one of the steepest climb of my route towards Turkey: the main part averaging 11% over 7 kilometres was conquered. Holy sh*t, that was tough on legs. I was literally crawling, meter by meter getting closer to the summit. At 60rpm, 9-10km / hour I was happy my knees didn’t break down.

New at the blog? Read part 1 first: Transcontinental Day 1-4: Enjoying France!

Continue reading Epic mountains, rain nor MTB tracks can stop me! Transcontinental day 5 -9

It’s over 8 weeks ago and finally found some time to start writing a few lines about my experiences and more important, my learnings for next races. After finishing, I immediately knew I would race again, no doubt whatsoever. In the past few weeks I’ve been medically struggling: during the trip to Turkey I managed to pick up some parasites and a tinea pedis (athlete’s foot) and to finish it up I had multiple surgeries to my mouth removing my last wisdom tooth including a benign tumour. That’s done so time to reflect on the most intensive two weeks I have ever experienced.

Continue reading Race report: Transcontinental Day 1-4 – Enjoying France!