By Marco Milesi
Adventure cyclist and long-distance travel writer
At midnight, when the temperatures at the front of the race almost fail to go below 20 degrees, we find Florian still leading. He is the only rider who has already passed checkpoint 3: Torun in Poland.
Ralph and Jens get there at around 2:30pm, when Florian is already 150km away towards the South West. Meanwhile, 30% of the riders have crossed checkpoint 2 and 70% have crossed checkpoint 1. Helsinki (checkpoint 1) is located at a distance from the beginning where most ultra-races end: roughly 1700km.
Now Florian is starting to show some signs of fatigue. As proof, his average moving speed is slower than the one of both Jens and Ralph, and his daily average is decreasing rapidly: he started with a solid 550km per day, which has now dropped to less than 450km per day. Additionally, if we look at the percentage of time spent resting compared to the one spent riding, Florian and Ralph rode for about 75% of time, leaving just 25% of the total time for resting; Jens, instead, managed to rest for 35% of time, yet keeping second position.
At this pace, it looks like Jens can sacrifice a bit more resting time in favor of more cycling time, resulting in longer distances and a chance to catch Florian and conquer the lead. Will it be this way? Or will it be one of the riders in the background to surprise us?
Photo credit: Florian, Jens, Ralph – the mandatory selfie at checkpoint Torun with Copernicus.
