This year's Tour of Estonia will consist of two stages. On Friday, the 196-kilometer ride from Tallinn to Tartu will end with a climb up Toomemägi, which has become a tradition in recent years.

On Saturday, the competitors will complete a 164-kilometer circuit around the streets of Tartu, to bring this year's tour to a close. The weekend of cycling action does not end there however, with the 43rd Tartu Cycling Rally also taking place on Sunday.

17 different teams will be involved in this year's Tour of Estonia. Looking at the list of competitors, there are plenty of cyclists involved who know the roads here almost as well as the locals do by now. Last year's winner, Denmark's Rasmus Wallin, is among those taking part.

Even though Tartu has the title of European Capital of Culture this year, according to the organizers of the Tour of Estonia, this has not really made life any easier for them.

"As paradoxical as it may seem, in a year when Tartu is the European Capital of Culture and you can see quite a lot of resources being added to the city of Tartu, our budget has decreased for the first time in 15 years," race director Indrek Kelk told Vikerraadio.

"This year we will receive less money from the City of Tartu for the Tour of Estonia. It doesn't really affect the composition of the teams, there will just be one less race day. We originally planned a prologue in Tallinn, but without taking on the loss of tens of thousands of euros, that was unrealistic. I'm really happy that a team like Uno-X is coming to Estonia in two days' time," added Kelk.

Two-time Tour of Estonia winner Karl Patrick Lauk will be competing for the Estonian national team at this weekend's event. Other experienced riders in the Estonian squad include Norman Vahtra, Rait Ärm and Gert Jõeäär.

"The wind always plays a big role in the Tallinn-Tartu leg. If it is a day where we are going downwind, four hours and a bit on the road would not be too crazy in cycling terms. But, if there's a headwind, it can turn into a completely passive ride, making the day extremely long and messing up the course. There's no point in complaining, we'll just see what happens, but this headwind will definitely paint a very different picture to the one what we've had in previous years," said Lauk.

As always. the Tour of Estonia features a Tartu-based continental team, with young riders in charge. A team which is usually based in Mongolia –  the Ferei Quick-Panda Podium Mongolia Team – will also add a lot to this year's race.

Although mainly racing in Asia, the team of Mihkel Räim, Martin Laas, Gleb Karpenko and Oskar Nisu leapt at the chance to compete in Europe. Antti-Jussi Juntunen from Finland also joined them.

"When you say in Asia that you're going to race professionally in Europe, that's seen as the hardest thing. Europe is the holy grail in cycling and the Tour of Estonia is a first category race too, so there was no question," said Räim when asked about the Mongolian team's participation in the event in Estonia.

"It would have been difficult if we had had to bring everyone in from Asia, the costs for the team would have been really high. However, because we had four guys who were here and finally we also brought a Finnish-Estonian with us, we got the costs down and thanks to that, here we are."

"We have a guy who has won the Tallinn-Tartu stage, a guy who has won the Tartu stage and guys who have won the whole tour! I don't think those statistics are too bad," Räim said.

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