DAY 60 <-> DAY 49
The adventure rules for this 2024 edition gave our participants 60 days to finish. Young Belgian Miguel Letor came very close to meeting the deadline, finishing in 59 days and 6 hours! He is the last to arrive, as Michael Polak will shortly be stopping off in northern Spain.
For Miguel, however, this adventure didn’t come naturally. “I hesitated a lot before signing up, because I’m at the start of my professional career, because I had an unmissable wedding on the way and also because I’d never done this before. But when I saw the great video of the Sun Trip Alpes 2022, I said to myself that I had to take the time to do it before starting work. The strength of the Sun Trip is that it makes this dream accessible. Without this collective dynamic, I wouldn’t have done it! You quickly get hooked, and so do your friends. In the early days, some of them told me they couldn’t work any more because they were so addicted to the menu. It’s crazy!”
After a 10-day break after passing the Checkpoint in Portugal (to attend his friend’s wedding), Miguel had the great courage to set off again, isolated in last place in the adventure. His perseverance proved invaluable, and as the adventure progressed, he gained in strength.
“I loved discovering the bike and always the beautiful colors. My favorite part was crossing the desert zone between Sidi Ifni and Zagora, which was a real adventure. It was there that I suffered my only puncture of the trip. I also have wonderful memories of arriving at the checkpoint at the Tizi N’test pass, almost at nightfall, with the view plunging down over the Taroudant plain. It was absolutely spectacular”.
The climb back up to Spain is also among Miguel’s fondest memories, “it was very interesting to discover central Spain, with lots of pretty, authentic, lively areas. It was very different from the deserted Spain we had on the first leg”.
Counting his break in Portugal, Miguel rode almost 150 km a day, most of the time camping out in the evenings. “Having set off from Belgium I must have exceeded 8000km of adventure, that’s huge and I intend to return home by bike!” Having sometimes used his charger Miguel is not ranked in the solar challenge, but he will still have used solar charging most often. “I’m satisfied with my bike, I’ve had ideas for improvement and above all I’ve been able to see that the potential of the solar bike is great!”.
We hope to see Miguel again at the start of a Sun Trip. Welcome back to Belgium and good luck to him in the beginning of his professional career.
