Good luck all. I'll be watching and dreaming along from Aus

For the Ye Olde HuRT, the start and finish are right in the middle of Newcastle.

For the Big HuRT, Newcastle is about 2 hours away from the start line by train. With the ability to get the train right at the airport, I would think Sydney might be a better option for people to get to the start line since Newcastle doesn't have any bike friendly public transport options to the city.

The finish is in the middle of no-where i.e Wisemans ferry. There is a caravan park so check in, clean yourself up, sleep like the dead and then catch the river postman the next morning down river to the train station at Brooklyn - book the day ahead and order the 3 course meal. Romantic.

Tanner,

You need to split the file into 10,000 point files and upload three of them.

In base camp, double click the track file, scroll down to the 9,999 point. Highlight it and chose 'split track at selected point'.

Repeat till the file is sliced up then upload the three files to the GPS.

Awesome, if you need any help with accomodation, airport shuttles etc, PM me and we can sort something out.

I don't know about the GSB but I think the KB is every other year; next event is in 2014.

 

I'm kind of hoping they sort it out so they run in alternate years....... <crosses fingers>

so bummed to miss it this year. I hope either the GSB or KB run again next year because i'll be all over it like a fat kid on a doughnut!

I just stumbled across that last night. An awesome behind the scenes view of his operation.

also:
Scott posted some photos of bags that he just released to fit salsa anything cages. It might be useful for the OP
http://www.porcelainrocket.com/2012/02/13/anything-anything/

Nice write there Mr 54. You're pretty handy with a camera too! I too failed to make the kiwi brevet although I can only wish for 'form to spare' 

In November 2011, a sneaky little self supported event ran for the first time following 324km of mixed single track and fire roads through the Hunter Valley in Australia. It's working title was called the 'HuRT' which seemed to stick, and while it was a small event with only four riders, it was a start for bikepacking events in Aus and there are quite a few people lining up ITT's for early 2012.

This year, we wanted to go bigger, so the Big HuRT was born and while the last of the mapping is still being finalised, it will certainly crack the 600 km mark. It features every kind of terrain imaginable; smooth flowy single track, rutted motorbike tracks, rocky fire roads, god foresaken hike-a-bikes and some amazing scenery.

It's a rugged event so don't expect to finish it in 2 days, It took the winner 40 hours to finish the original HuRT so we are forecasting near enough to 5 days for the new version. Riders look after themselves and follow the standard self supported ethos we all know and love.

The start date has been set for September 1 2012 and the HuRT and Big HuRT will run concurrently so choose your length and start planning.

More details are available at the wordpress site http://hunterracetrail.wordpress.com/ or the facebook group http://www.facebook.com/groups/190943500957500/

Happy Trails!

For me, the biggest win seems to be increase in the number of trackpoints it can store. The 10,000 limit on the vista HCX was always an annoyance. From the testing some friends have done, the etrex 20/30 can hold way more than this which becomes very valuable when trying to navigate a maze of single track on very long files. I can't wait to get my hands on a new etrex 20 later this year.

Am I reading this right?

You need to make 40 strokes a minute for a full hour to get 890mls of fresh water???

http://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/HikingCamping/WaterTreatment/PRD~5007-825/katadyn-survivor-06-water-desalinator.jsp

Check out K-lites as another versatile option. You can customise the output levels depending on the application and get some ridiculously long run times out of them (Anywhere between 5 hours and 120 hours ) and they still put out more light than my AAA Princeton tec Eos.  I don't think there is a AA option although I'm pretty sure Kerry would come up with a solution, he likes a challenge.

http://www.klite.com.au/

LOL. Helps to know people and have 2 titanium bike manufacturers in my town....

Yep, that's gorgeous. Looks way more solid than a Fred bar!

Nice GPS mount too

Scott, I only have an Etrex HCX but a friend has an Etrex 20 so i have a small idea about them. Your device should be able to handle 10,000 trackpoints in a file. If you are seeing flags rather than a continuous line, then it definitely sounds like the exported file off the website is setting them up as Waypoints rather than trackpoints.

All I can suggest is trying a different online mapping software. I have used maymyride and it worked with my HCX and my friends Etrex 20. It allows you to snap to roads and the 80km file I put together had about 3500 trackpoints.

Is it possible to store more than 10,000 waypoints on the new model? Can you get it to reference the SD card to 'upload' more data points from it? This 10,000 waypoint business is a real buzz kill.

For something independent of the seatpost, perhaps something like this?: http://www.freeload.co.nz/store/0/3/Sport-rack

Check out Klites - http://www.klite.com.au/

They have the ability to be reprogrammed to give just about any desired run time. One small Lipo battery can give up to 100 hours run time and they are still brighter than an equivalent AAA powered light e.g princeton tec apex. More than enough for bike packing applications.

I was very impressed when Kerry was demo'ing them at a recent 24. 

I think he even had a crack at the CSR?

That stuff is on a whole other level. One day, although I think I'll wait for a moonlander and have a few teaspoons of cement between now and then

It was one of those trips where I would have put it off if I didn't have several thousand dollars worth of donations for OCA and everyone excited to track my spot. Knee problems 3 weeks out wasn't how I had planned the lead up Anyways, lots of lessons learnt and the HuRT isn't far away which can destroy my knees all over again

A couple of weeks ago I had a crack at riding across Australia in fast touring mode using a bike packing setup. While things didn't pan out, I learnt a lot and at least have a cool story to tell and managed to raise some money for a worthy cause.

For anyone that is interested, the write up is here: http://pi11wizard.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/trans-oz-the-wrap-up-part-1/

I took quite a few videos however the camera seems to have corrupted the files so photos are all I have.