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Garage Days

Training for the Transcontinental Race

By James Robertson

It’s half five in the morning, I’ve ridden across Edinburgh and arrived at Jonathan Rankin’s house just as he has walked out of his front door and into his garage. A wattbike takes centre stage with various touring and commuting bikes placed around - each with a distinctively tall headtube and numerous spacers.

“I should not be good at; I am not good at; I'm not designed for cycling at all”, he tells me: although it’s necessary to disagree with at least one of the those points considering his outing in TCRNo6 led to him being the 10th rider to cross the line - although without his partner James Craven.

Having both applied for solo entries to TCRNo4 and 5, they decided to change tack and apply as a pair. When first introduced as a category there was concern that pairs would have a considerable advantage over a solo rider however it has become the accepted truth that there are far more pros than cons, and a pair still talking to each other after 4000km let alone finishing in the top 10 has seemed improbable - James and Jonathan probably came the closest to changing that of any pair.

Garage Days

Garage Days

After a strong start, and looking fresh at the first two check points we were surprised to only see Jonathan winching up the steep climb to CP3 - having assumed simply that James’ tracker had failed to update and expecting to see the unheard of sight of a pair in the top 10 this far through the race. As it turned out, that morning they had split with James suffering from a chest infection which was later confirmed to be pneumonia. Despite this Jonathan was the 10th rider to arrive at the finish in Meteora, though finishing without James place him outside of the general classification. “There's a difference, it's a big difference, in my head between starting as a pair and racing as a pair: starting as an individual and racing as an individual. And I think that, you know, for me it's a race.”

Jonathan spent much of his time training before TCRNo6 while living in Tokyo. Combining running track sessions with weekend bikepacking trips, “on a Friday night I would pack a bag up and put it on the back of the bike cycle off and then it would get to about midnight by the time I got out of Tokyo and I would sleep at the side of the road and then I would wake up ride all day Saturday bivi again and then ride all day Sunday and get back into the middle of Tokyo by Sunday evening.” This year he is taking a more rigorous and methodical approach - something his current situation allows him plenty of time to do. Having recently moved up to Edinburgh for work and with his partner still working in London his parents garage has become the focal point of his training regime.

Garage Days

Garage Days

Garage Days

Garage Days

Garage Days

Each day he fits in 2 hours of training before work, varying between recovery rides, long intervals and steady rides. During harder weeks he is back on the bike for another 2 hours after work and his weekends involve longer riders either endurance based or short interval followed by a steady ride. Jonathan enjoys the consistency and has missed only one days training since October even going as far as taking his Wattbike with him on holiday. He is quick to point out he doesn’t really see this as an intense schedule; “before I ever cycled I rowed and the training I am doing at the moment would not be out of the ordinary for a very amateur rower.”

Jonathan’s interest in long distance cycling started with a post university cycling trip across Europe on a hastily assembled secondhand bike and grew through a love of holiday and the desire to eat more and see the “in-between parts of countries”. He and James first came across the TCR while cycling through Montenegro on a trip from northern Italy to Bulgaria during TCRNo4; “we chatted to the owner of the campsite that we camped in and he was really annoyed because someone from the race had come and slept on his porch without paying for anything and had left after a few hours, so we were aware that the race was happening all around us and we were climbing up this path this mountain up to where the fourth checkpoint was and we saw the cars coming down sat with I think Camille for like an hour or so and just chatted a little bit.”

Garage Days

A veteran rider, with previous form and a combination of bikepacking and focused training, who is full prepared to acknowledge that anything can wrong once you start, Jonathan is clearly a rider we will be keeping an eye on throughout the race.

Garage Days

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© 2026 James Robertson

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