For the first time, the Pushbikers competed in the UCI 2.2 stage race through the three Baltic countries – and not only became a crowd favourite, but were able to finish on the podium again in the overall classific Filippo Fortin finished third overall in the Tour after finishing the final stage in second place ahead of his Dutch team-mate Roy Eefting in third. Our Danish Pushbiker Matias Malmberg rode to 7th place in the final stage and completed the strong performance of the team.
The Baltic Chain Tour is part of the UCI Europe Tour and is also organised to celebrate the regaining of independence of the three Baltic states. It commemorates the “Baltic Way”, the 650 km long human chain that stretched from Vilnius in Lithuania via Riga in Latvia to Tallinn in Estonia in 1979 and demonstrated the urge for freedom and independence from the Soviet Union.
The Baltic Chain Tour started with wet conditions for our Pushbikers Fabian, Filippo, Liam, Matias, Philip and Roy: The longest stage of 198 km from Tartu to Valga had to be tackled in the rain. mmediately it became clear: the basic speed will be high with teams like the Alpecin-Deceuninck Development Team, Uno-X DARE Development Team, ATT Investments or also the Danish team Ceramicspeed Herning as well as several national teams. “I don’t really have any problems with rain,” says Filippo Fortin. “In a gravel section I had a defect and had to finish the stage with a spare wheel from a breakaway group. I am not used to such a group, in the end I finished sixth, which was not quite the result I had hoped for”. Overall, however, Filippo placed 5th due to the points he had scored.
After the rain comes sun! On day two there were 161 km to cover, a flat and therefore also very fast stage with start and finish in Sigulda, Latvia. Filippo Fortin collected points as second in the first sprint classification and also took fourth place among the “most combative riders”. In the end, the stage results were: another 6th place for Filippo and a strong 10th place for Matias Malmberg, who is finally back in action after his heavy crash at the Polish Solidarnosc Tour in June. In the overall standings, Pippo moved up to an excellent 3rd place, which gave hope for a strong last stage.
Final race day: On more than 156 km all riders wanted to show themselves again and this stage was again very fast with an average speed of 49 km/h. In summery temperatures there were several breakaway groups on the rather flat stage, but they were caught by the peloton again. Shortly before the finish, a fast group broke away at the front, in which our Pushbikers Filippo, Roy and Matias had placed themselves. Through strong teamwork, they were able to save power and were clearly able to ride at the front. At the finish line this meant: second place for Pippo directly ahead of Roy in third and Matias in seventh.. What a team performance at the end! In the overall standings, Pippo came in 3rd place and was able to leave some of the top riders behind.
“The people from the Baltic Chain Tour love the Pushbikers, our style, our vibe, how close we are…. that made me super happy because we have such a good development in 2 years and I feel I’m part of it too!”
