By Marco Milesi
Adventure cyclist and long-distance travel writer
Photo credit: Marco Milesi, Andy Buchs
As usual, aero man (Florian) is the first one to wake up and start pedaling towards Torun, the next checkpoint. Meanwhile, both Jens and Ralph wake up and start cycling afterwards; however, Jens faces unexpected mechanical problems with his front wheel and therefore is forced to go back to Riga to fix the issue. Kudos to him for keeping a cold blood and a focused mind: he Is back in the race after slightly more than 2 hours.
Consequently, now the leaderboard looks like this: Florian, Ralph, Jens and Yves. After these first four riders, a uniform block of cyclists is formed right after Tallin.
Ralph strategically slows down to let Jens pass again, while he saves some precious energy. At the end of the day, the order of the riders is the same as it was in the morning. Still, Florian now has 250km of advantage against the others, now both resting in Jurbarkas (Lithuania).
As Torun (Checkpoint 3) gets closer, Florian seems to be in a good position, but sooner or later he will have to pay for all this pushing. And when that moment comes, will Ralph and Jens be able to exploit it?
Photos: Florian cap 66 in Lithuania near the border to Poland.
