Inside the TCRNo12 Route: From Arctic Light to the Mediterranean Coast
Fjords, the Tatra Mountains, and the heat of Greece. We trace the TCRNo12 route and the weather riders are likely to meet along the way
Transcontinental Race (TCR) begins close to the Arctic Circle and finishes on the Mediterranean coast.
Between those two edges of Europe are around 4,800 kilometres and 50,000 metres of climbing. The broad line runs south through Scandinavia and central Europe before finding the mountains again in Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Greece.
Riders will leave Trondheim beneath a sky that never becomes truly dark. By the finish, they may be descending through dry Greek hills towards the Messenian Gulf, the cold opening nights feeling a distant memory.
The race will change language, landscape, and climate around them. Pine forest becomes farmland. Fjords become plains. Central European towns give way to Balkan valleys, scattered villages, and roads pressed between mountains.
A line from northern twilight to warm Mediterranean water.
Trondheim: beneath the northern sky
TCRNo12 begins at 20:00 in Trondheim’s central square.
Darkness will be reluctant to arrive. The sun may slip below the horizon, but the sky will hold its colour, leaving riders to begin through a long Scandinavian twilight.
The opening parcours leads away from the city and into the Norwegian interior. Roads narrow. Settlements thin. Forest gathers around cold lakes, and the land begins to rise towards the high country.
The first 700 kilometres to Flåm contain two mandatory sections. Parcours 1A follows Mjølkevegen, the “Milky Way”, across one of Norway’s great upland landscapes. It crosses broad plateaus, open water, and gravel roads, with a sense of riding above the ordinary world.
Norway might look gentle on a map – the valleys are long, the roads often smooth, and the distances between turns enormous. Then the land folds around a fjord and the direct line disappears. Roads climb sharply, with the landscape leaving no other choice.
The opening forecast points towards cool conditions rather than severe weather, with temperatures around 13°C by day and falling towards 8°C overnight. Across the exposed Norwegian uplands, even moderate rain and wind could make it feel considerably colder. In clearer moments, light may linger across still lakes and bare rock – beneath low cloud, the same roads will become grey, cold, and enclosed.
Flåm: from high ground to deep water
Control Point 1 sits in Flåm, around 700 kilometres from Trondheim.
Pressed between steep green walls and dark water, waterfalls fall from the cliffs, and cruise ships arrive from another world entirely.
Riders will reach it from above. The mandatory parcours drops through Norwegian mountain country towards one of the deepest fjords in Europe. After hundreds of kilometres spent moving through forest, plateau, and open road, the land suddenly falls away.
A rider may arrive under full daylight, watching the fjord appear far below. Another may descend at two in the morning beneath a pale sky, with scattered lights beside the water and no clear boundary between night and morning.
Flåm is expected to be milder than the high country, with daytime temperatures in the high teens and cool nights beside the fjord.
Here will still feel early. Bikes will be relatively clean, and the race will not yet have taken enough away to show what remains. Then riders turn southeast, beginning the long move away from the fjords.
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From Scandinavia into Central Europe
After Norway comes a long passage through Sweden and the centre of the continent.
The mountains soften. Roads stretch towards distant horizons. Forest gives way to farmland, red wooden houses, open fields, and the repeated blue of Scandinavian lakes.
Riders choosing Sweden’s west coast can stitch their route through Bohuslän using five authorised ferries. Some are barely long enough for the shoreline to recede – three-minute road ferries drawn across narrow sounds, a short crossing onto Orust, or the longer passage over Gullmarsfjord between Finnsbo and Skår.
They offer a different f,eeling from the long Scandinavian roads. A rider rolls onto the deck, rests the bike against a railing and watches granite islands, fishing villages, and dark water move slowly past. For three minutes, or five, or ten, the race continues without another pedal stroke. Then the ramp falls, the clock begins to matter again, and Sweden resumes on the opposite shore.
Beyond Sweden, the route belongs entirely to the riders. Each will draw a different line towards the mandatory sections in Czechia and Slovakia, joining roads that may never otherwise have formed part of the same journey.
After several days, countries begin to blur.
A rider may wake beneath a bus shelter in Sweden, spend hours crossing the Baltic, then roll onto Polish roads before the next sleep. Signs and road markings change; northern forest gives way almost immediately to a denser central European landscape.
The words on shop windows take on a different character overnight – Sweden’s å, ä, and ö giving way to Poland’s sz, cz, and rz. The language tightens with the landscape, as open water and long horizons give way to railway lines, towns, and more industrial skylines.
The air may change with it. Forecasts for central Europe suggest daytime temperatures moving into the low-to-mid 20s, although showers and heavier bursts of rain could still follow riders south.
The journey will be remembered through smaller details. The warmth of a petrol station at night, mist beside a river, swallows above the fields, a village fountain, a road running straight towards a distant storm.
After the broad roads and open country of the north, the land rises towards Czechia and Slovakia. Forest thickens around the roads, valleys narrow, and the Tatra Mountains begin to gather ahead.
The Tatras: the route breaks apart
The second Control Point (CP) lies in Slovakia’s Low Tatras, around 2,700 kilometres from the Trondheim start.
Parcours 2A twists through Czech mountain country before Parcours 2B crosses towards Jasná beneath the slopes of Chopok. The profile rises and falls through deep valleys and forested ridges before climbing sharply towards the CP.
After days of choosing their own roads, riders are pulled back onto a fixed line. The mountains close in. Smooth progress gives way to steep gradients, narrower tracks, and a landscape shaped by forest, rock, and ski slopes.
A late change has broken many carefully prepared routes.
The hiking trail immediately beyond Parcours 2B is now prohibited even to riders walking or pushing a bicycle. Park authorities have warned of €300 fines and may actively watch for racers. A line that appeared available has disappeared days before the start, sending riders back to their maps in search of another way south.
A route planned over months can be erased by one last-minute message. Inconvenient, but in part also the reality of such an immense logistical feat, for riders and organisers alike.
The Tatras may be crossed beneath bright sun, low cloud, or a sudden summer storm. Conditions around Jasná are likely to be mild in the valleys, but the exposed slopes will be cooler, with afternoon thunderstorms a persistent July possibility. Riders arriving at night may see little beyond wet trees, pale gravel, and the occasional dark ridge appearing above the beam of their lights.
By morning, the range may already be far behind.
Sarajevo: history in the forest
Beyond Slovakia, the race begins to lean towards the Balkans.
Roads follow rivers through long valleys, climb across wooded ridges, and pass through places shaped by histories far older and more complicated than the race moving through them.
The northern light has long since gone. Night is properly dark again. Warm air may linger long after sunset, carrying the smell of dry grass, woodsmoke, and hot tarmac. Late-July afternoons around Sarajevo can reach the high 20s, but the surrounding mountains can bring showers and a sharp fall in temperature after dark.
By now, the riders will be several thousand kilometres from Trondheim. The front and back of the field may be separated by entire countries, yet each dot will pass through the same gradual transformation.
Control Point 3 sits above Sarajevo on Mount Trebević, around 3,520 kilometres into the race.
The parcours loops through the forest around the abandoned bobsleigh track from the 1984 Winter Olympics. Concrete curves between trees, broken, graffitied, and slowly absorbed by the mountain.
It is one of the route’s strangest collisions. A structure built for speed, spectacle, and winter ice now sits silent above a city that endured a very different history less than a decade later. Riders will pass through it alone, perhaps in darkness, perhaps beneath shafts of summer light falling through the trees.
The track lasts only a few kilometres. It may remain one of the clearest memories of the whole race.
Sarajevo spreads below, surrounded by mountains. Minarets and church towers rise between red roofs. Roads descend into the city and climb away again towards Bosnia’s interior.
Then the race continues south.
The Balkan mountains
After Sarajevo comes a long passage through Bosnia and Herzegovina towards Albania.
The map begins to tighten. Mountain ranges, borders, and prohibited roads gather around the possible lines. Valleys appear to point south, then turn away. Roads follow rivers until the geography forces them upwards.
Smooth tarmac may end without warning. A wide valley road becomes a narrow lane above a gorge. Forested slopes rise around abandoned buildings, orchards, roadside cafés, and villages where a cyclist carrying everything they need may still draw attention.
Heat will deepen the colours. Grass turns yellow, rivers carry blues and greens beneath stone bridges. Evening light holds against the mountains after the valleys have darkened.
The distance travelled begins to feel carved into the land rather than counted on a screen.
Control Point 4 lies in Leskovik, around 4,250 kilometres from the start.
The mandatory parcours crosses southern Albania close to the Greek border. Its profile rises through a long central climb before dropping towards the control.
Mountains stand above deep river valleys. Roads cling to slopes and pass through villages built from pale stone. The landscape carries the dry openness of the Mediterranean, but the scale remains mountainous.
Leskovik sits high above the valleys, surrounded by forest and rock. Riders may reach it beneath hard afternoon sun or in the cooler hours of night, when the road disappears into darkness and only the smell of warm pine suggests the country around them.
Norwegian rain will feel like a memory from another ride. The Tatras may survive only as fragments. Greece and the final stretch lie immediately ahead.
Greece: The last country
Crossing into Greece brings the race into its final geography.
The route continues south towards the Gulf of Patras. Riders cannot cross the Rio–Antirrio Bridge by bike, so the small ferry between Antirrio and Rio becomes the authorised passage onto the Peloponnese.
Another pause on water.
The bridge rises above. The Gulf opens towards the Ionian Sea. Bikes stand beside cars on the deck while exhausted riders watch the northern shore fall away.
The Peloponnese still holds hundreds of kilometres and a final succession of mountains.
The finish parcours runs for around 178 kilometres towards Kalamata, crossing the interior of the peninsula before descending to the coast. Its profile climbs repeatedly, with one final high passage before the road falls towards the city.
Greece is likely to feel dry and intensely bright after the north, with daytime temperatures around Kalamata commonly reaching ~33°C and little relief once the sun is high.
Olive trees cover the hillsides in silver-green. Cypress trees rise above villages. Heat settles into stone walls and empty roads. The sea appears in distant flashes, vanishes behind another ridge, then returns larger and closer again.
Then comes Kalamata. The mountains fall towards the Messenian Gulf. The road reaches the city, the marina, and Skipper’s Cafe, where a journey beginning beneath Trondheim’s pale northern sky ends beside warm Mediterranean water.
One continent from end to end
At approximately 4,800 kilometres, TCRNo12 is expected to be among the longest editions of Transcontinental.
Its around 50,000 metres of climbing will be spread across a route whose character cannot be captured by a single profile. Norway climbs out of fjords. The Tatras rise from forest. Bosnia folds around river valleys. Albania forces roads across high border country. Greece saves more mountains for riders who can already smell the sea.
They will cross forests, fields, coastlines, and borders. They will sleep beneath skies that become darker and warmer as they move south.
Roads close. Trails are banned. A carefully drawn line is broken and remade. Once the race begins, weather, fatigue, and chance will change it again.
From Norway’s high plateaus to the deep blue of the Mediterranean, the road will keep becoming something else.
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This edition looks like it's going to be magical! I wonder what the plan is for the heat spectrum riders might be on.
Excellent summary of the route - excited to be dot watching!