17 hours in

Darren Franks and the riders of the first wave are now 17 hours in on their journey to Brest and back. Up front on our tracker map, Darren is roughly 70km from Brest, where he’ll have his brevet card stamped before turning back towards Paris for the return leg. Here’s some atmospheric images from the road, captured earlier this morning:

Behind Darren is Will Armitage, who found himself riding solo into a headwind as he made his way towards Loudéac. “Wheels came off about 20km ago plugging solo into a headwind. It was a struggle going more than 20kph having been averaging 30kph so far.”

Further down the course in a later wave, Jenny Dennyson has made it to checkpoint 1, and is refuelling ahead of her next leg. A quick nap in the early hours rejuvenated her strength, and now she’s back on the bike: