10 facts about Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme that are hard to believe

10 facts about Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme that are hard to believe

Riding across Russia, not making it to the end: from Moscow to Vladivostok by bike.

Have you ever wondered how far Moscow is from Vladivostok? It takes 9 hours by plane, 6 days by train, 115 hours by car if you drive without stopping and sleeping. And how long is it to ride 9,103 kilometers on a bicycle? Cyclists found out for the fourth time in the Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme (RBTSE).

15 stages – 25 days – 8 time zones – 5 climate zones
6 riders – 22 cars – 78 people creating the RBTSE

Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme is a bicycle race in which athletes cover the distance from Moscow to Vladivostok (9103 km) at speed. The distance is divided into 15 stages, limited by time limits. Within the time limit set for a stage, a rider can ride at any speed, stop to eat and sleep, but if he exceeds the limit of hours and minutes, he will be disqualified from the stage. After three disqualifications, the cyclist is disqualified from the race.

This year, Germany’s Pierre Bischoff, Denmark’s Mikael Knudsen, Brazil’s Marcelo Florentino Soares, Russia’s Vladimir Gusev, Spain’s Patricio Doucet and India’s Amit Samarth were competing for the win. The first two have already participated in last year’s race, while Soares rode the RBTSE for the third time!

Starting day and night, fighting with the wind, rains and sun, fighting with yourself and your opponent – we watched all this for 3,5 weeks. And now the winner has been decided – Pierre Bischoff has covered 9,103 km in 315 hours 45 minutes 26 seconds. But what do these figures tell us? Is it a lot or a little? We have already talked about how to compare an ordinary life with the hours spent in the saddle of a bicycle.

And to understand the athletes who heroically withstood the test of Russia, and to get into the atmosphere of the race, look at the cards about the Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme 2018 race.

Watching such a massive competition is mesmerizing. Every time, seeing the faces of athletes at the finish line, you puzzle over what kind of dough these people are made of, that after traveling more than 1000 kilometers, they continue to smile and joke. And even if in front of the camera they seem to be quite ordinary people, as they were before the start in Moscow, at the end of the race on Russky Island in Vladivostok you could see the changes in everyone’s eyes: the five finishers were not just “rolling” all these thousands of kilometers, they were morally growing and tempering their character.