It was colourful and joyful for our team riders Filippo, Roy, Matias, Philip, Felix, Fabian and Liam. Some of them had already arrived in Tallinn a little earlier, explored the city together and rode down to the seaside, searching to see Helsinki on the horizon. “An absolute travel tip”, was the catchy opinion even before the race started.
The first stage of the Tour of Estonia was very long with a total of 206 km, flat on paper except for the final climb with cobblestones up to to the finish line. A supposedly not too difficult course, but with many wind edges to watch out for. The peloton split halfway through the race, with six Pushbikers staying at the front of the 45-strong group. “This showed how attentive but also how strong we are,” says Philip Weber. At the first KOM classification there was a breakaway group, which was occupied by Roy Eefting and Matias Malmberg. “Of course I wanted to take the opportunity to win the classification and bonus” said Dutchman Eefting, who managed to do so not only in the first but also in the second mountain classification on this day. After that, it was also his job agein to create a lead out for captain Filippo Fortin. Fortin won with two seconds ahead of local hero Markus Paiur (Tartu24). Another two seconds behind followed teammate Roy Eefting in third place, while Matias Malmberg finished with a total of eight seconds behind in ninth place. So the yellow jersey of the overall leader, the green jersey of the best sprinter and the red jersey for the mountain classification went to the Pushbikers.
