The final battle

I have mentioned the race of solar bikes called Sun Trip several times during the last months. Not only I published an article about tilting delta trike with automatically tilting solar panels and a serial hybrid transmission built and ridden by Bernard Cauquil, but I have also shown a video from the beginning of the race and documentary movies from all the previous editions.

The racers have been on the road for one month now, and the first two will finish their journey soon. It is a great battle of two velomobiles, the WAW ridden by Jean-Marc Dubouloz and the Quest by Emil Barbut. They have even climbed to Pico Veleta checkpoint together, a pass in Spain at an altitude of 3.360m / 11,000 ft. Now, they are about to cross the Pyrenees to enter France again. The race will finish in Lyon in the next few days. You can follow the battle to the very end via the Facebook page of The Sun Trip or even through live tracking.

Those two velomobiles aren’t the only recumbents racing in The Sun Trip. Above mentioned Bernard Cauquil is in the third position and several others are there as well. You can see them in the videos below, which nicely present the atmosphere of the race and the countries the route goes through. I especially encourage you to see the one describing the climb of the first two velomobiles to Stelvio Pass in Italy in very different conditions.

The race also has its shorter version, which doesn’t lead through Spain and Portugal, but finishes in Lyon directly. Instead of 10.000 km / 6,200 miles it is “only” 7.000 km / 4,350 miles long. See the map. This shorter version has ts winner already. A team Team Urbasolar – Suntrip Europe 2021 also on recumbents. Samuel & Baptiste rode two AZUB Ti-FLYs.