Topic: TAR 34 Maps

[Neobie]

Fun fact: One of the routes from Smash to Saw passes by the marked parking lots for the Pit Stop, so teams might have accidentally ended up at the Pit Stop before they wanted to!

[Maanca]

What do you know? Friedensengel is next to the river. Aastha & Nina had the right idea about where they often like to put Pit Stops.

[Neobie]

Fun facts:
- It was a 1.2km/0.75mi round-trip for Rich/Dom to get back to the carpark to retrieve their hat.
- The Pit Stop was right next to the bells!

[georgiapeach]

^^ Love that!

[Slowhatch]

The yodeling was at the Rosengarten Nature Reserve, just north of the hotel.

[Slowhatch]

Leg 3
Start, DDP and parking.

• Anatomy Theatre
• Barbieri cheese shop, and then to Osteria del Cappello or Ristorante Diana

Ducati museum, factory and track.
and on to Villa Bardini...

[Neobie]

Thanks Slowhatch!

The course for The Big Cheese was 1.7km/1.1mi. Derek/Claire ended up on the next street while looking for the Osteria del Cappello, but this wouldn't have cost them more than a minute.

Glenda/Lumumba, however, went 0.75km/0.45mi out of the way from the Arco del Meloncello, to the junction of Via XXI Aprile 1945 and Via Antonio Zannoni. It's such a distance to the centre of town, the lady they were asking told them not to walk, but to take the bus instead!

[Slowhatch]

Leg 4
The RB was also the DDP. The bank of the Arno also served double-duty as the Detour end point.
The fashion shoots were here, here and here. The buchetti were here and here; I couldn't find the third (biscotti) place. Finish mat.

[Neobie]

Thanks Slowhatch! The biscotti was at Vivoli, near the Piazza di Santa Croce.

Quite a bit of running this leg! If you chose Eye for Fashion you'd cover 4.4km/2.7mi on foot from the carpark to the Pit Stop; if you chose Window of Opportunity it'd be at least 5.2km/3.3mi.

[Slowhatch]

Leg 5
Petra is easy; there's an interactive map here, and streetview is also available (bonus fwiw: how to solve slide puzzles)
They lost me on the detectorist RB. The train started at Wadi Rum station, and ended approx. here; notice the village and police barracks they just passed and the 3 pylons arranged like palm trees. The trail is cold after that. At least we know where not to look; the valley is chock full of "glamping" facilities.

[Neobie]

Am currently on the road and maps for the next two weeks might take a little while, but found the location of the metal-detecting Roadblock at 29°45'8"N, 35°26'17"E, north of the main tourist area!

[Slowhatch]

Leg 6
Leg start, DDP and Detour. I can't find the name of this parklet behind the tourist information office, but it seems to match the RB spot. Pit Stop. 

[Slowhatch]

Leg 7
Start, RB, Detour, and Pit Stop.

[Neobie]

Glenda/Lumumba had their little accident here.

Maps coming in (over)due time!

[Neobie]

Teams were all over the map for Amman. Coming out of the Citadel onto al-Hussein St, teams should have turned left, hugging the Citadel walls. Instead, Luis/Michelle, Quinton/Mattie, and Glenda/Lumumba turned right, going the opposite direction down the hill.

In their recap, Luis/Michelle recounted going back up the hill to come down the correct way with Quinton/Mattie. Glenda/Lumumba, on the other hand, are seen going through al-Hadadah Tunnel, which saved them that uphill climb.

Luis/Michelle and Quinton/Mattie stumbling upon the Pit Stop isn't too much of a mistake; it's pretty much on the way between the bookstore and the Detour options, and just 100m/110yd off course.

[Maanca]

Missed you, Neobie! Happy to see your full leg maps again.

[Neobie]

The drive from the Detour to the Pit Stop is filled with literal and figurative twists and turns, and requires a full slideshow to explain. I fully empathise with the teams!

Marcus/Michael explain in Racers Podcast that they jumped ahead going from the Roadblock to the Detour by taking the smaller D46 instead of the larger D704, which got others stuck in city traffic.

The part where Derek/Claire and Molly/Emily turn around going to the Pit Stop are actually from much closer to the Detour, and aren't covered here. (They were going the right way, and didn't need to turn around.)

[Slowhatch]

Leg 8
Start at the Domme viewpoint. RB and DDP; The bricklaying was approx. here, between the bridge and the Ferris wheel and the poetry was here. The pitstop boat was parked approx. here.

[Neobie]

There's some dishonest editing this episode. We're shown that the best way from Domme to Toulouse is on the A20, while Quinton/Mattie took the (smaller) "D49... [staying] on it the whole time". But neither the D49 in Dordogne nor the D49 in Lot (the next department over) lead to Toulouse. In fact, when they're shown later in the episode navigating small villages, the footage is really just them getting out of Domme.

Quinton/Mattie must have been on the D49 for just a short while trying to get to the A20. I wonder what put them that far behind then?

Edit: Actually, neither D49 is on the way of where they want to go. How did they end up on either D49?!
https://routes.fandom.com/wiki/Route_d%C3%A9partementale_fran%C3%A7aise_D49_(24)
https://routes.fandom.com/wiki/Route_d%C3%A9partementale_fran%C3%A7aise_D49_(46)


For Marcus/Michael, part of the confusion entering Toulouse is that there are overlapping highway designations at that point. While the highway sign only shows "E80 / E9 / Périphérique intérieur" going left and "E72 / Périphérique extérieur" going right; maps would more prominently show A62 going left (which Marcus later says he doesn't want), and A620 going right instead.

If teams understood French / the French highway system, they would also have found that "Périphérique intérieur" refers to "Ring road, going clockwise" and "Ring road, going anti-clockwise", which would have been much clearer when matching where they are to their maps.

[Neobie]

Slightly clearer maps for Episode 7, taking into account what we learn from the racers' interviews and podcasts.

[Neobie]

Thanks Slowhatch, as always! Maps for Episode 8.

[Slowhatch]

Leg 9
Neobie already did the work in the episode thread. A couple of additions:

• The bicycles were staged here, hundreds of meters away from Plaza Merced, for some reason
• The Detour choices were on either side of Rooster crow

[Neobie]

Just updated the Episode 8 maps with some new information from interviews and racer recaps:

- The show suggested that all teams took the A20 to Toulouse except Quinton/Mattie, which were shown on the D49. But the D49 was just the first road you take out of Domme, as Quinton/Mattie are seen here. Instead, Quinton/Mattie mention in this interview that they took the A20, but when the autoroute ended 45km/28mi short of Toulouse, they chose the two-lane M820 instead of the six-lane A62, because the former looked more direct. The distance is actually pretty much the same, but the smaller highway would obviously take more time.

- Derek/Claire mention on their recap that there were multiple options to get on the A20. They and Luis/Michelle took the D704, while Aubrey/David took the D703. (They mixed up the two on their recap, but D704 is the more southerly one.)

- Derek/Claire also mention Marcus/Michael getting on the D55 to get to the A20, but I couldn't find it on a map. We see the brothers on the episode switching from the southbound D46 to the eastbound D673 here, so it looks like they did D46 > D673 > D12 > D49 > A20, which matches up with Derek/Claire mentioning that they join up with the A20 further south.

- Emily/Molly are seen on the episode getting on the A20 at Montfaucon here, meaning they took the D801, an offshoot of the D704 route that Derek/Claire and Luis/Michelle took.

So which was fastest? According to Google Maps...

Aubrey/David (D703): 199km, 2h12
Emily/Molly (D704 > D801): 177km, 2h4
Derek/Claire and Luis/Michelle (D704): 170km, 2h2
Marcus/Michael (D46 > D673 > D12 > D49): 168km, 1h58
Not sure which route Quinton/Mattie took to get to the A20.

(Granted, Marcus/Michael chose the fastest route, but given the risks of taking small country roads, say getting stuck behind a tractor, I think the other teams didn't make a terrible decision either.)

[redskevin88]

(Granted, Marcus/Michael chose the fastest route, but given the risks of taking small country roads, say getting stuck behind a tractor, I think the other teams didn't make a terrible decision either.)

Not funny.

[Neobie]

Not funny.