By Marco Milesi
Adventure cyclist and long-distance travel writer
Photo credit: Thorsten Brömer, Andy Buchs
June 19th, Alta (NO), late afternoon.
Norway from above is quite easy to describe: big chunks of green fields, alternated by smaller clusters of black rectangles and squares. That is it. Everything is wet, everything is cold.
Still, I have never spent so much time looking outside the plane window while landing. I am mesmerized by the dystopian-like scenery that is slowly unveiling beneath me, where clouds are leaving space for water triangles cut into the mainland to appear. The famous fjords are showing all their greatness and ability to provoke a slight sense of fear to me, a small human flying down from the sky onto this beautiful land.
But I am not feeling alone. Just like me, around 80 other people are flying to the same spot on the globe: Alta. And they all have the same event to attend to.
There is a bike race, some say it is the longest in the world, others say it is the toughest, all I know is that in 1 day, exactly at one minute past midnight, 75 riders from 30 different countries will face one of their lifetime adventures.
They will cycle from North Cape (Norway) to Tarifa (Spain), across 15 countries, going through 9 checkpoints, overcoming challenges, unforeseen events, great joys and days full of discomfort and pain along the 7460km route.
There is something magical about humans when they try to push their limits, and the inspiration everyone can get from them is the reason I’m following this race. I will write to you every day, at least once, for the weeks to come.
Nice to meet you, I’m Marco, and this is Northcape-Tarifa 2026.
