Day 4 of the TCR11 is coming to an end. Christian Strasser, 6 time winner of the Race Across America, is 3rd at the moment, with a total riding time of 4d 5h, and a total stopping time of just 18h.

They are now enroute to Siena where they have to ride parts of the Strade Bianche as part of the fixed segment #4.

It will be interesting to see if some riders chose the more flat option via Parma and possibly Bologna down to Siena or the more direct yet significantly more hilly approach via Genoa, Sestri Levante and La Spezia (absolute stunning region to ride btw - will post some pics of me last rides there later).

All in all the battle for first is still on, there is no clear favourite and the fear of a lot of the top riders that the mandatory ferry from Bari is going to act like a safety car in F1 and remove hard earned time gaps is looking more and more like a possibility. Also the "long" rest period on the ferry is posing a challenge for the riders since the body might already go into recovery mode, making the departure from Albania even harder.