Had planned lower mileage today due to parcours. As it happens I am feeling good. At one point I was considering pushing on to Zagreb, but that would be a 1-2am arrival… I didn’t want to take the risk of a night in a bus shelter. So I booked a hotel about 15km after my planned stopping location, got here at 10. Big mileage day tomorrow
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#21 Zainab in 2nd place. Just 9h30 of stopped time so far, 9% of the time!
<2hr of poor quality sleep, each day for 4 days, whilst cycling mountain passes
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Matt really needs to turn off the wind on the insta updates 
He was saying on the livestream that the guy who won last year (Strasser) was planning to cycle back up the parcours to avoid a long gravel road and using the route tracking option it appears that he and quite a few of the other leaders have done just that. And on top of that the majority of the leaders are taking a longer route south, presumably to keep on better roads.
Interestingly, No5 (who was about third) and one of about 4 to take the gnarly road option, has gone backwards in the last hour or so, guess he’s had a mechanical??
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Not the first time I’ve wondered if the organisers simply do this to f**k the riders about.
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I was just spotting the same thing on the tracker. I first saw #1 do this versus #2, but then realised quite a few others had done it as well.
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#1 and #21 have caught up on the leader quite considerably.
Although they are on c13hrs stopped time and the leader is now up to 19hrs so he’s probably taken the opportunity to use some of his lead to recover.
Do we think some of these top guys are taking advice from a coach or support team over the phone?
I’d agree.
It’s clearly not hard enough to just ride all the way across Europe 
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Today was one of the most amazing riding days of my life. After I cleared Zagreb I was on the main road that follows the Croatian / Bosnian border on the Croatian side. I was on this road for the best part of 150km
The road is in perfect condition, even by swiss stablndards. However there are almost no cars on the road. The road for its entire length is line with detached house on both sides of the road.
At the end nearest to Zagreb, it feels prosperous. Well kept homes, lots of farming equipment dealers, smart cars and smart tractors. After a while i noticed a few abandoned homes, as you go further, more and more abandoned homes, then stretches where for many kms every building is abandoned, many riddled with bullet holes. Then after Novo Gradiska it gets better and there are less and less abandoned buildings and signs of a war that ended 30 years ago
This is one day’s cycle ride from Austria
Anyway, I chose this route as i had read that the ride is really nice, I think that heading toward Banya Luca may have been around 1hr faster - however i would have missed this incredible ride
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Banja Luka also ‘saw’ the war; even if not physically damaged. Supposed to be a beautiful place.
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Matt over the 2000km mark. Having taken a different route from many, looks like he’s now on the “standard” path most are taking to the next parcours. Most of those slightly ahead have significantly less downtime than Matt, so will be interesting to see if his freshness helps him make up ground
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The next parcours isn’t too far for Matt. Looks long though and it’ll surely be dark!
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Be interesting to see what tactic he adopts once he’s finished. Continue onwards, or double back to drop into the main road like #1.
Is there shelter at the checkpoints? That could be an option for his evening, as it’s pretty sparse after the parcours which doesn’t really fit with his normal hotel strategy
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I thought that too. There is normally a check point to get your brevet card stamped. I’m sure it’ll be a rough sleep on a bit of floor thougg
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All the way to the very leaders. Matt’s AVG moving speed is within 1km of everyone when I looked this morning!
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In his morning update, Matt said he was aiming for Kalinovik, a village after the parcours.
He seems to have been stationary for quite a while. The people he was only a little way behind are all at the checkpoint and he’s not moved, yet his tracker says it’s updating. Hopefully not a severe mechanical
Edit - actually not true. It’s now saying last update 28mins ago
Edit 2 - All good! Clearly a tracker updating issue!
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Looks like he’s stopped at the control
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I suspect he’ll be aiming to leave at first light??
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He’s in company, quite a few there and more making their way up to them.
The leaders are all looking a little closer as they make their way across Greece
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Matt’s just crossed into Serbia, looks like speedier riding after all the gravel around parcours 2.
None of his riding today is on Streetview. It looks like Montenegro has been mapped but Bosnia, Serbia & Kosovo, hardly anything.
The TCR photos on FB look spectacular.
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