By Marco Milesi
Adventure cyclist and long-distance travel writer
We kick the day at midnight, with all 3 leading riders resting. Florian is at the front, already past Bregenz, Jens is a bit before the checkpoint and Ralph is 250km away from Jens. The only rider at front moving during the night is Benoit, who crosses the border between Poland and Czech Republic at 3:30am.
At 7am aero man and record man wake up and start pedaling almost at the same time, leaving Jens hanging. Florian reaches after a short time the first important climbs in Switzerland, right after Liechtenstein, therefore he is forced to slow down.
During the day, aero man goes through the first crossing into Switzerland entering Italy afterwards. Jens, instead, stops at the beginning of the ascent to the Oberalp pass when Ralph reaches Bregenz in Austria.
At 10pm, all three riders are, once again, standing still. Meanwhile, Benoit has almost entirely covered the distance of the route into Czechia. Is the early-stop of Jens a strategy or is it something different? It is hard to believe he only needed sleep, as we know he has been stopping way more than Florian, might it be a physical issue? Or are we about to witness an attack on aero man when he least expect it?