On the one hand, I am cross that they have decided to tackle this at the same time as Steve and (to my mind) seem to be deliberately using him as a pacer for their own ends/glory.
Tis the nature of the cycling beast though isn't it? And at the rate Kurt is riding in beautiful Florida [who wouldn't start there? in January?] it's not going to last very long. It won't be long before he has more miles on the clock than Steve and days in hand. Even if he gets close to Steve then decides to pull back a bit, biding his time, that's a well dangerous game to play in an event with such huge longevity and what lies ahead is the unknown. If he carries on as he is and goes ahead, then he's in the driving seat, but that's a seat with nobody to follow. Never mind what anybody else is doing, just do what needs to be done.
It's worth remembering that after today Steve will still have about 93% of the challenge left to complete, and Kurt 98%. Somewhere down the line, they'll both be in new territory where they will have ridden further than they've ever ridden before without any kind of recovery. That's when the whole thing will really start to kick in.
And the recumbent thing is interesting, because I'd have thought that with careful planning in terms of roads, conditions in the USA, if miles is your main objective, and you can ride where the hell you like, and you're going to ride recumbent at some point, then ride the damn thing from the beginning. My very limited experience switching between the two tells me that the two ways of riding in terms of muscle groups are not perfectly interchangeable. Unless he's looking to ride into a monstrous head wind for a month, then I can't see what advantage he'll gain really by switching like that.
What fascinating times we live in