By Marco Milesi
Adventure cyclist and long-distance travel writer
Photo credit: Marco Milesi, Andy Buchs
During the night, most riders choose to take a break and sleep, apart from Florian. He only stops for a couple of hours and then starts cycling again at around 3am. Meanwhile, we receive the news from Peter Wieneke, number 48: he scratched due to health issues.
At 6am the leaderboard looks like this: Florian leading, Jens and Ralph trailing at about 130km from him, Yves, Stefan and Udo forming a chasing group right afterwards and then a big chunk of riders cruising at a more peaceful pace.
Florian keeps pedaling non-stop and reaches Helsinki at about 11am, that’s officially a new record! He managed to cover 1753km in 3 days and 11 hours, improving the record by roughly 9 hours. He then stops in Helsinki to get some rest, waiting for the ferry to take him to the other side of the Gulf o Finland into Estonia.
When Florian gets to Tallin, Jens arrives in Helsinki, just in time for a ferry. Same for Ralph. They both get the chance to rest on the ferry on their way to Estonia, although just for 2 hours. Ralph chooses to stay in Tallin, while Jens keeps pushing through the night.
Meanwhile, Florian has increased his advantage to a massive 200km, resting for just 20% of the total time. Will he be able to hold this rhythm or will he burn out?
