If there was ever any doubt about how emotional the Actavis Lifecycle Challenge 2013 can be, then the very first day of this year's event was a stark reminder.

The cyclists "draft", riding very close in a single file in order to benefit from the aerodynamics - but one cyclist got entangled with the person in front and fell to the ground. He luckily only suffered grazed and bruising but by the second day, his injuries forced him to retire from the challenge, a bitter disappointment after 18 weeks of intense training and sacrifice. It was also a wake-up call for the rest of the cyclists, who are intensely aware of the fact that what they are doing is not only a physical but also a psychological challenge.

The rest of the day, which took the team from Vilnius to Kybartai, was otherwise uneventful, with just a light drizzle to keep the cyclists cool. However, their arrival in this city of just 6,000 was quite an event and the team were welcomed by the mayor and city council as well as the local press.

"The mayor got someone to call the Russian guards at the border of Kaliningrad to ensure that everything would go smoothly for us and promised to send someone with us to help - which will be a great help because they speak Russian. Wednesday is a relatively easy day - we must only cycle 154km - but if we spend hours at the border, it can make it a very long and exhausting day!" Soner Gurelli explained.