Trans-Siberian, the Italian team proceeds without a break and wins another stage

The Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme goes on. For the starters winning the tiredness is harder and harder, but Paola Gianotti and Paolo Aste’s team proceeds in style. And it gains the victory in the tenth stage as well.

Where are you guys and how is it going?

At the moment we are in Chita, next to Mongolia and China. It is all going well, we have completed the eleventh stage and won the tenth yesterday. Today we rode 658 kilometres, with a lot of climbs. The landscape has really changed since we are now in a steppe zone, there are lots of grasslands and population is different as well, it has Mongol features, much more Asian than before. We did this long 24 hour-stage and we finished today at midday. Tomorrow the most difficult stage awaits us, since is 1300 kilometres with a difference in altitude of 11.000 metres. Certainly it is going to be the roughest stage of the entire race!

Tell us what happens behind the scenes…When you are not riding do you manage to have some leisure time?

When we are not riding we have time just to eat and sleep, as much as you can, but you have not free time because turns are very fast, one hour, and so you eat and try to get some sleep. You try to unwind as much as possible and it is not that easy to sleep either, since there is not much time between one turn and another and there is a lot of adrenalin which keeps you from getting to sleep.

Which is your diet? Does it happen to eat your meal together with the other ultracyclers?

Concerning the diet, when we come to a stop we eat carbohydrates and proteins. During the race we eat sandwiches with ham, cheese and honey instead. If it happens to spend the night outside, the organization gives us soup or meat or pasta. We also eat a lot of chocolate, bananas and our supplement. It may occur to eat together with the others when we are at the end of the stage, then when we have finished riding and we are at the hotel. It is the only moment in which it may occur, otherwise everyone eats in his own van, we have one per head and hence we handle it this way.

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