Matt around 160km from Greece now
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It looks to me like heās taking it easier today, not surprising after yesterday.
I guess he wants to land near the start of the 4th parcours for Friday morning?
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He did say in his Instagram video he would take it easy today and not push big distances
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Sowler is at CP3 ā¦ big decision on whether to start on the parcours, would be doing it in the dark
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Coke?
Are you talking the fizzy drink or the white powder?
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I couldnāt possible comment.
Na, Matt said something along the lines of him being quite surprised how easy itās been to stop to refill the bottles
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We got here a fair bit after 4, the climb up to Burell taking much longer than planned in the savage heat. Having spoken with Matt weāve decided it wouldnāt be sensible with Sarahs little gravel experience especially if it took Matt 6 hours. So we having an early night at CP3, chilling out and getting up there super early. Plenty of other poor riders heading out at this time with no idea whatās in store for them!
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Sounds like a good decision. Best of luck to you both. 
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Tirana was fairly nice, as you say though, huge differences in the haves & have notās. Mount Dajti was a nice walk after the cable car, if there was any bears I missed them!
Some of the coast that I saw looked good as well.
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Idly flicking through Strava whilst waiting for an apple and blackberry crumble to bake and saw this.
My conclusion is that however horrible Matt found it, more or less everyone else found it worse and went more slowly!
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But there are also parts that are starting to look shit as drug money is being laundered into cheap high rise hotels - if you avoid the bigger resorts then itās fine.
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Iāve toured the Balkans a couple of times by motorcycle. Absolutely love it there. Memorable for the pissed border guards trying to fleece you, gangs trying to steal your bike and paying a 10 year old to look after your bike to ensure itās still there when you return in the morning. And my best two up wheelie Iāve ever pulled to express displeasure at some Hungarian bikers who were complete and utter fuckwits that resulted in a weird 20 minute bike chase that almost resembled a death race until we finally dropped them. All mixed with some of the kindest hospitable people Iāve ever met. Brilliant place, canāt wait to return 
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Thatās a bit of a shock
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Looks like theyāve both had a good start to the day.
Sowler nearly at the end of the parcours, MS just crossing into Greece.
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We got going at 4:30am hit the Parcours at 5:45 had it finished by 9:30. We were both expecting something that was terrible. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. I guess being on a gravel bike made a huge difference. Be interesting to see what our Strava times is for the segment.
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What tyres are you using? I think people seem to range between 28-32mm. The pics Matt took of that track made it look rough i.e. a dirt track, rather than a gravel/fire road.
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Mattās photos made it look like MTB/CX bike territory, certainly looked like it would be sketchy with a road tyre.
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Yeah, looked like it needed a different type of tyre than youād want for pretty much the other 4000km!
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Matt has gone for the gravel climb between parcours 4a and 4b, dot seemed to be moving smoothly as I was cooking dinner.
Sowler team moving serenely back into southern Albania
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