Welcome to our live blog of the fifth edition of the Transcontinental Race, which began in Geraardsbergen, Belgium on Friday 28 July with the riders heading across Europe to the finish at Meteora in Greece. Riders are free to choose their own route, but must pass through four checkpoints on the way. These are at the Schloss Lichtenstein in Germany, Montegrappa in Italy, the High Tatras mountains in Slovakia and the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania.
We will be providing rolling updates on the race over the next couple of weeks, including on-the-spot dispatches from our man on the inside, road.cc blogger VecchioJo aka Jo Burt who is riding the race as a pair with Gavin Peacock. You can follow Jo on Instagram here, and Gavin here
> See VecchioJo's bike and kit for the TCR
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.