Bikes of the Transcontinental Race: How do you set up a bike for a 4,000km unsupported event with no set route?

While the Tour de France has now wrapped up and attention is, for most of us, turning to the Olympic Games, the Transcontinental Race (TCR), one of the blue riband events of the ultra racing calendar, has just got underway.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Transcontinental it is an unsupported race with no set route, tackled in a single stage; the clock never stops. After setting off from Roubaix in northern France the competitors have to hit four checkpoints across Europe before finishing in Istanbul, Turkey. The distance will be around 4,000km, though this depends on the route the riders plot.