I went back a few pages in thread and clicked on a mtbcast and it popped up.
You trying mtbcast site 2?
http://mtbcast.com/site2/category/td19/

Yep. That link doesn't work for me. I suspect it's a DNS problem with my provider. It all went pear shaped about five days ago. Every other site is fine - I've been listening to the chat with Sofiane Sehili on bikes or death for example.

A quick question - is mtbcast.com down? I've not been able to reach it for a few days now. Just tried "ping mtbcast.com" and the requests timeout.

We have a second bouncing dot! Nate Ginzton has just finished. Congratulations to him. 

Oddly when I've quit on distance challenges it's taken me longer to recover than when I've succeeded even when it was external factors rather than any problem with myself. Probably purely psychological.

Randy Neill's latest spot location is either an anomaly or he's jumped onto a truck and managed to ride 800 miles or so in thirteen hours. As a fellow sexagenarian I'd love to be able to ride that fast

404 – Page Not Found

My mistake, I copied from a post on another forum that shortened the URI, this should be correct: https://theradavist.com/2019/06/2019-tour-divide-race-part-1/

The guy with the "Bike Mad 4 Madagascar" frame bag is Steven Moatt, he's raising money for the poor in Madagascar. Unfortunately:

had a disaster and not even left Banff. I have lost an envelope with over one thousand US dollars in it which was going to take me through to the Mexican border.

What exactly is “the media crew” that keeps being referred to?

https://theradavist.com/2019/06/2019-to ... ce-part-1/

Ovando is just under a quarter of the way along the route. I can't remember from previous years, does anyone post similar sets of photos from further along the route say Atlantic City and Abiquiu which are roughly halfway and 3/4 way along the route?

It looks like both Josh Ibbett and Kai Edal missed the turning for Stempel Pass but Kai is now back on route.

Thanks - for a sort of confirmation bias reply We settled on Surly Ednas, they are currently sat on the bedroom floor awaiting fitting.

My wife has a Surly Wednesday which currently is the stock model so has the 27tpi Surly Nates mounted tubeless on 80mm My Other Brother Darryl rims. I was doing a bit of internet shopping this morning and asked her if she wanted anything, the answer was "some lighter tyres for the fat bike"!

We are heading to Lapland (yeah, yeah, Santa Claus and all that) next Feb for a race so the primary focus is that. There's also the possibility of doing another race in Norway. Outside of that our use of the fat bikes is intermittent.

According to Surly the Wednesday can take a maximum of a 4.6" tyre which is kind of awkward as there aren't that many tyres in the 4.1" to 4.6" range, lots of 4.0" and plenty of 4.8" but ... The two that spring to mind given that I run 45Nrth tyres are the Flowbeist and Dunderbeist. They are very winter specific though, here in the UK we don't get months of lying snowfields or groomed trails  so they'd be somewhat overkill for most of the time. Sticking with 45Nrth there's the Husker Dus, I've got a somewhat worn set of these for my bike, only 4.0" but seem decent if there's no snow (or mud) to contend with. The Vanhelgas (which I also have) are pretty similar to the Nates if slightly bigger but like the *beists a bit overkill if there's no snow.

Is there anything else we should be looking at?

Welcome!

I use 3M protection tape, AKA helicopter tape. You can get it in various widths. Here's a guide to how to apply http://bearbonesbikepacking.blogspot.com/2015/03/damage-limitation-frame-taping-guide.html

We've just come back from a two and a bit week trip to France. We were originally intending to do the French Divide ITT but we both scratched at about a quarter of the distance, we then spent a week touring around Brittany.

We both had rigid MTBs, I used a Cotic Solaris, my wife a Stooge. These were fine for the FD but a bit much for the touring side of things. The FD was quite a bit of easy stuff, road and canal paths and the like, but then there'd be a kilometre steep descent where it was borderline needing a FS bike. The touring was a mixture of quiet roads and "voies vertes" which translates as "green lanes" but they are nothing like the UK idea of green lanes, it's better to think of  green as in "Eco". They are quiet roads, canal tow paths, shared footpaths, old railway lines and are designed to be family friendly. Some of them are very long, we did part of one that went between Roscoff in Brittany to Kiev in the Ukraine!

Most of the time on the Voies Vertes you'd be fine on a road bike but there's the odd section of gravel farm track which wouldn't be nice. I'd go with the Giant even if you don't end up using any of the VVs.

As for kit, we were travelling very light as we were set up for the FD and our tarps and bivy bags caused some curious looks on the campsites when we were touring: "Look like sardines!" was one comment Some people we saw touring had masses of kit - Bob trailers or similar were quite common - but you are never far away from shops and restocking. Most towns and even some of the villages have a "camping municipale" with costs ranging from 7 - 22 Euros per night. If we were to go touring again we'd use a lightweight two man tent like the MSR Hubba Hubba, it wouldn't add much to the weight of camping kit over the tarp/bivy combo especially when split between two. Of course the problem is that quality lightweight (and non-bulky) kit costs money.

Here's what my bike setup looked like.


Adding a tent (or my half of one) would just make the bag on the handlebars a bit bigger. The biggest/bulkiest thing to be added would be a stove and assorted paraphenalia, sort of depends what you want to cook really. We'd be happy with an coke-can alcohol stove to make brews and eat out but that's not cheap! You don't need much kit really, France at that time of year is pretty warm, most nights I was sleeping on top of my bag not in it.

The tattoo is a chemical structure diagram but my chemistry isn't brilliant so I don't know which compound. I looked at a few of the more (ahem   ) interesting ones and it's not one of those.

Getting away from any fragility/lack of robustness on the part of Di2 kit, one advantage it does have is that gear shifting is consistently easy. After several days on the go and with lots of changes thumb shifts can become painful to use. Having multiple gear "levers" in different locations is another bonus.

I'm sticking with mechanical though - I can't justify the extra outlay for Di2 - the derailleur, wires, shifter, battery and display here in the UK are the equivalent of at least $700. The mechanical version is $110 or so.

Actually there is a punishment for route deviation- you must have missed it in the Book of Gadd: "If ye deviate from thy route, the ear of thy favorite dog shall be split asunder, thy bottom shall chafe and burn, and all elements of weather shall visit upon thee."

As mild a punishment as that? 

[you]

Part of the "problem" is that there's no limit to those turning up for the Grand Depart so tourers aren't taking up places that racers might want/deserve. Personally I think if you send a LOI or turn up in Banff for the TD Grand Depart then you should be "racing", i.e. you don't have to aim to be up with the likes of Josh Kato or Lael Wilcox but you are intending to ride as fast as you can. If you just want to tour it then hang around Banff for a few days to check out the GD and then set off yourself.

Calling people out for not following the route/rules isn't black and white, there's lots of shades of grey. I suppose there's partly an element of intent involved - if someone knows that riding trail X rather than trail Y is far easier and/or quicker then there's intent to deceive and they should be called out for it but if someone's taken a left for one block then gone straight on when they should have gone one block further before taking the left there's no material gain and if it was a genuine mistake so what? There may have been a fire or accident at the junction they should have taken and there was a temporary diversion put in by the fire or police department. Ultimately it's personal integrity and honesty.

I've Toby Gadd's ruleset saved as one of my bookmarks. Given the preacher like tone I'm surprised each doesn't have a suggested punishment: No borrowing of gear - punishable by surrendering your bear spray for two days 

When does the touring mode rule on Trackleaders apply? Do they wait a day or two in case people have problems on the first day or are just taking their time getting into the swing of things?

I suppose it depends on how long you wish to be independent of shops and cafes or whether your routes take you near such facilities. With care a couple of days/nights is achievable but beyond that the bulk of food means that you need more storage.

Changing your cooking style will give the biggest benefits: If you try and replicate your home cooking system whilst out riding then you are going to be taking a lot of kit. Use the stove to boil water and rehydrate foodstuffs in their packing, (BTW When wild camping here in the UK open fires are a big no-no, certain areas now have restrictions on camping because of them.) I'll pre-prepare foods and pack them in ziplock freezer bags so I'm only taking what I need, i.e. chop onions and add spices and bag them at home

There's another thread about what pots/pans  folk use, might be worth looking at that.

I scratched early on - a combination of heat, vomiting, cramps and mechanicals. Currently just shy of 25% of the group start have scratched, heat has been a major factor in many of these though one rider abandoned due to being attacked by a cow!

This year's group start is on Saturday. There's a couple of Americans coming over for it: Michelle Dulieu and Ron Thomson.

Trackleaders page http://trackleaders.com/highland18

Weather forecast is for temps in the 18-20C range and for no rain. I'll believe the latter when I see it