This trail is CLOSED indefinitely with excessive damage to trail and surrounding infrastructure.

Thanks, Jason for all your service to Divide riders pre-event every year. For prospective riders who don't know, Jason runs the official TD bike shop (of choice) in Banff, called http://www.soulskiandbike.com/

Jason--do you have any info on the Rundle Dr bridge in Canmore heading up to Spray country, and what about the bike path between Canmore and Banff? Did the Cascade River bridge in Anthracite survive? This may have to be the finish route IF riders can make it up into K-country. If no Elk Pass, then there will be a 200-mile detour around on Crow's Nest pass and Hwy 40 from Sparwood.

Just as last year, the Live Tracker suffers from poor SPOT and/or battery performance. Roughly one-third of the top-10 riders had long drop-out periods. Rather than reassuring, I guess this device adds to the worries at the home front. If my life would depend on it, I would look for a more reliable beacon!

While I can appreciate your desire for excellent data--it's what Trackleaders' 'good journalism' is predicated on--I have to say, 'come on', in the case of sleep-deprived, self-supported ultra racing. Expectations are merely frustrations in which a sense of ownership complicates things. We have to keep our social media expectations low in this community, and realize we as fans of the events, or family of the riders, don't own any of this. If your life depended on it, as surely is not the case for TD racers because they are seasoned woodsmen depending on no one else but themselves, then you'd carry back up batteries and have them changed timely.

I don't buy it.  His points have been uber consistent with his Gen3 device all day, and then by coincidence it stops sending we he reaches BML?

Gen3's go into an idle mode (i.e stop tracking) after sitting (no vibration) in the same location longer than 30min. We challenged Mike before the race (in jest) to see if he could keep it from timing out. He's been pretty good at it.

Craig is starting to reel Mike back in.  Down to 46 miles at 11 a.m.

To understand the significance of gaps on the GDR, you have to know the average speed of the terrain between two riders. There are some monster wind-blown hills between them that deceive.

Bad News!  Santa Fe National Forest will be CLOSED on Monday June 24.  The ride between Abiquiu and Cuba is mostly in the SFNF. Here is the Albuquerque Journal article, and I also received an email from a ranger.  http://www.abqjournal.com/main/212412/abqnewsseeker/santa-fe-national-forest-will-be-closed-to-the-public-starting-monday.html
It might be possible to get a Special Use Permit, which I think would be better than having riders sneak through the barricades. Could one of the Organizers (Matt?) give me a call or email and I will put you in touch with the staff of one of our NM Senate offices who can possibly facilitate...
~Nat

Thank-you, Nat for the heads up. To the online community following the action here: Please let's try to limit the discussion about this closure until the the facts & options have been gathered (privately). I'd rather this news not get to the riders until it absolutely has to, lest it be an unnecessary morale crusher. The trick will be to figure out how to request special consideration for something that *doesn't happen* every year. Please stand by...

...Who knows...there's probably utility in checking in such that you know...you're fired so you might as well keep riding...

Sorry, couldn't help but distill your quote.

Eventually, when sat messengers become two-way texters, all challengers could quickly (and democratically) receive their daily trackleaders stats (via SPOT) while still riding. If it means equal access to info and less gadget fussing, I'm not against it. Maybe riders are only allowed to request their stats twice, or thrice in a 24hr period. Like burning an alotted time-out in the big game.

Interesting conversation on Tech...

The tech is OK. It's just having it spoon-fed by an outsider that I think goes beyond the spirit. Do it all yourself, all the googling, all the perusing on http://app.bluedot.mobi/, etc. It's OK to learn that you got off course by seeing it (for yourself) in your full history map on Trackleaders.com, but only if you go to the trouble of pulling it up / analyzing it yourself. Ultimately it's just another trapping, like motels and mail drops to POs, that future challengers will have to navigate. If you're looking at that stuff, you're not riding your bike, you're concerned unnecessarily with battery life, etc. To the end that tech might promote greater human feat / physical capacity, and thus deeper pain spelunking, then, OK, but if you just get sucked into it for the sake of googling, then you've lost the mission.

Larelsail - pleased to meet you!!  I'm so glad to know you're LP's wife!  Yes, Brian just texted from the Lodge.  We saw that course correction too.  They figured it out quickly.  Nope, no new Spot, so we're really glad Leo has a dependable one and that for now they're still riding together.  Never a dull moment, eh?  

With all due respect for the feelings TD followers may have for their SOs out racing, I am a bit troubled by the frequency of communication between SOs and racers. SPOT tracking was originally introduced to lessen the need for communication with the outside world. One is aiding / abetting a rider's efforts if texting them all day long. Please do not do this more than once or twice a day--if that. These guys need to be left alone to have their wilderness-ish experience. There is no such thing as a participant-observer in self-supported racing. I shudder to think of the subtle assistance that might come thru in these texts. Please, absolutely no race info should EVER be relayed to any rider regarding being off course, breaking other rules, about positioning related to others, about impending weather, etc. You're only selling short the recipient of such info, on what could be...well, more purely about them and their bike. Also, think of the huge disadvantage this behavior puts the increasingly international field at. Many of them are not carrying phones or don't have US service plans. Is it fair to them?

There is a 15mile section of the Rockefeller Pkwy (hwys 87/191/287) that requires a (mandatory) ride in a pilot car due to road construction. Pay attention to what happens with the front runners dots when they arrive to it. Luck will play a part. Unfortunately they will both be hitting it in the busy part of the day. Delays could be significant. I hate think the gap between the two leaders could be decided by the vagaries of pilot car cycles, but it's very possible. I recall waiting nearly 30 minutes there in 2010.

Mike Hall does not show up on my blue dot mobile app on either my iphone or ipad.....does anyone else have this issue?

Mike Hall is carrying a prototype Gen3 SPOT (pinging every 5min instead of every 10), and his feed is different. It's a 'test feed' that can be piped through Trackleaders primary script, but needs some work to be made visible on Blue Dot. Trackleaders / Dave Harris are working on this. With any luck, he'll be visible soon.

The chase group seems to have made some inroads towards shrinking the lead of MH and CS...the gap seems less  pronounced this AM. MN is gaining nicely on JP's "ghost"....

I would say it's more likely that 225mi days thru MT are not sustainable for very long. Some of the best attacks to stick on this route happen during / after Helena-Lima ('on the first sustained downhill', so to speak).

Jesus, finally they stopped. Where did they stop now, is that "Butt's cabin" ? On Google Earth it looks like there are a couple of cabins, more like a camp ground or something? thx

That is the elusive Butts. Only the gonzo sleep at Butts on night-1. Scott has been hard at work coding a virtual records layer for the live map. If you go to the Map Layers drawer and select 'Record Locations', You'll notice JayP will be along shortly to snuggle up with Craig and Mike. I wonder if they'll stir when he arrives.

Spoken like a true Canadian. Nice early morning interview: http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Local+Shows/Alberta/Calgary+Eyeopener/ID/2391425572/

Nick indicated it was on the bike path. Maybe Matthew can chime in as to the impact.

Minimal impact, and no effect on the record book. Bike path parallels the road. It's only .4 miles longer than the main road. Frankly it's not great for inclusion in TD because it's frequently closed for campground work and (this time of year) bear activity. It's got some awesome high-speed blind corners, but posted speed is only 10mph.

Wow. Ten years since Mike Curiak first challenged John's `99 benchmark; 9 years of group departs. Enjoy another edition!

Thanks everyone for contributing to this pre-race thread. The Grand depart rolls in the morn so let's start fresh with a race discussion thread.

In fact, I think it would be SO GREAT, that I am going to add a cool Benjamin to the overall prize.

Easy now...lets be careful how we speak of 'prizing'. 100% non-revenue status is part of what keeps these bootlegs flying below certain permit requirements. First rule of intra-race betting is don't talk about intra-race betting.

If I had say, which I don't, I'd vote that any 'take' goes to the poor Portuguese and Peruvian sheepherders who tramp the Brazos ridge (just down-route). Those guys are paid pennies per day, and probably only in credit to the company store.

I hope I didn't do anything to screw up Billy's run.

You didn't. If he has half a brain, he knew before looking at app.bluedot.mobi or Trackleaders. If one rides by cues, as one is supposed to--GPS or not--the cyclometer quickly doesn't add up. What is undesirable is outside influence on riders' moral dilemmas. Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching (somebody said that). That's sort of the sacrifice in authenticity when SPOT tracking honor-based racing...but alas, we are seeking records and glory, right(?), and thanks to social media, the future will be notarized!

How do you control it?

You can't. Doping is human. Gains of tenths of percentage points are rationalized. We can just hope we're using tech for the greater good.

I just got off the phone with Billy. He realized that he missed the turn and went back and re rode it. He is also in contact with Matt Lee. I saw his facebook videos this AM. Between the mud and wind it has been a tough couple of days for him!

I asked Billy to report any snowed-in passes to us. (Brooks Lake Rd atop Togwotee is not surprisingly still buried). We exchanged a text msg. I did not communicate with Billy about his (apparent) mistake (remember, all SPOT data are always unofficial).

It wouldn't be anyone's place to contact Billy to inform him he made a mistake. It's probably also not kosher to discuss non-compliance here on the forum 'as it happens', so it might be used by tuned-in racers to correct their own bad behavior.

Not sure what to say about active racers hanging out here. It can't be banned, and I bet it happens frequently among those who ride motel room to motel room, but as soon as one begins to lurk here, one ceases to be racing. Excess time reading about the race you're in, ain't healthy. If a rider lets a bunch of forum armchairs shape his / her ride zeitgeist, then...bummer. The people on the ground are the real thing.