By Marco Milesi
Adventure cyclist and long-distance travel writer
Photo credit: Marco Milesi, Andy Buchs
We left our riders at midnight, with Florian already riding in Estonia, chased by Jens and Ralph at, respectively, one ferry away and two ferries away. Meanwhile, Yves and Stefan, the trailing riders in third and fourth position, still have more than 50km to cover before getting to Helsinki. Anyway, the first ferry leaves at about 8am, so they are forced to a stop.
Jens surprisingly chooses to take a break in Tallin and therefore almost gets overtaken by Ralph. But he manages to wake up in time and starts moving right before the other rider’s ferry docks. Florian handles the gravel section before Sindi in Estonia perfectly and keeps the lead with an advantage of 160km over Jens and 200 over Ralph.
By 8am Florian has officially crossed the 2000km marker, in just slightly more than 103h and 30m, after other 2 gravel sections: one still in Estonia and another right after the border with Latvia. At the same time, it looks like Jens has issues staying on the bike, as he continuously stops, reducing the advantage against Ralph, who can close the gap before Riga, bringing it down to just 5km.
Time goes on, and in late afternoon Yves also gets to the shore. Followed by April and the French pair with a very ambitious goal: to reach Nice in 10 days (Benoit Merchez and Patrick Gilles). Still, there is a gap of approximately 150km between the third and fourth rider.
At 10:30pm Florian reaches the second checkpoint: Hill of Crosses in Lithuania. At 11pm all the leading riders stop for resting.
Florian on his TT bike has been keeping an unprecedented rhythm, but Jens and Ralph have been good in remaining close to him. It looks like somebody is risking his strategy: is it the veteran and record man forcing their pace to not loose terrain or is it aero man pushing beyond his limits to gain some distance?
We’ll find out when the first ascents will begin in the following days. Stay with me.
