So, Matthew, does that mean that they (you?) find it acceptable for supporters to replace Spot units if riders lose or break them? If so, is there there other equipment that is also exempt from the no-support clause?
Or do you (they?) prefer to rule on this after the racer has completed the course, as has been done in the past?

Toby--Please be careful not to hang too much on TD interpretations of its rules unless, of course, you plan on racing TD one day. I don't speak for other event organizers.

The short answer to your question is yes replacement is acceptable, and no, no other part of one's 'kit' would be exempt from the normal shipping rules applied to emergency replacement (of equipment).

Justification for a SPOT exemption is two-fold:
1) it's a proven regulatory tool. We appreciate how (if used as we hope) it keeps honest folk honest and makes the job of monitoring course compliance easier.
2) TD does not consider a SPOT an ergogenic aid. Some may disagree, but for TD, it's not. It weighs 5-7 ounces, eats batteries, and won't feed you or navigate for you.
Note: Although TD requires ITTers to 'geo-log' their rides, no ITTer would (currently) be relegated simply on the grounds of losing their documentation tool.

Regarding your 'supporters' reference, call a 'third-party' what you will. You make it sound awfully pre-planned. I don't think anyone predicates their Divide racing strategy on a superior (third-party) emergency kit replacement system. That's not what breeds confidence or what typically wins races. Clean runs with zero broken parts and precious few mistakes win races.

For many events I would be happy to compete under terms of zero third-party interference. It's not extremist across the board. Sh!&% happens, though, so a challenge as big as Divide racing ought endow a bit more open approach to emergencies (e.g. the traditional Divide racing hitchhike allowance). GDMBR scale is immense; the stakes perhaps higher. All Divide challengers are encouraged to see the route 'thru' for many reasons, not the least of which are logistics. It's costly to bail from the GDMBR mid route...unless you're one of those 'kolorado kids'

I always knew you were a disturbed Ar-Tist!
Thats right on! Glad you chimed in!

I can't take credit for that. Wordle.net will whip one up for you PDQ.

In all seriousness, for TD we think of a SPOT sort of the way a referee is viewed in the game of football: they're considered a 'neutral part of the field'. The players and the ball can come into contact, bounce off, etc. the referee and the ball / the play are not immediately considered 'dead'.

For SPOT, due to it's value as a means of course validation (a crude referee of sorts), special rules apply. TD does not consider SPOT support any more than racing in a large field of grand depart riders is considered an acceptable form of support. Both can have a similar effect on the environment surrounding the rider, whether you're talking about special consideration from commercial service providers or acquiring time splits to other riders. --part of why to date we've required SPOT (or at least a logger) for the ITT but not the Grand Depart.

Here's a word cloud from the past couple pages...

Just spoke to Ollie. He's happy to be finished. He fired off an OK message at 10:46 this morn from AW...right after he donned the white jersey for top rookie and maize jersey for GC. 16:02:46 is the new time to beat. Congratulations Ollie!

Just talked to Jay in Silver. He was partying down at Mickey D's. He says he's wearing his full rain gear kit for warmth. It's been very cool. "Two water bottles between resupply points", he described. He's poised to finish and head on over to Vegas for Interbike.

Looks like Eddie's already in Helen after a well done 100 mile day. Shey and Carey are just starting the Trey Mountain ascent with the Hickory Nut descent into Helen to go. Hickory Nut is not easily done in the daylight, much less twilight, or night!  Awesome watching this.

It is fun to watch. Eddie is flying. Shey looks solid, Carey is flying...and who is this Wayne Gowens fellow looking so good in his first bikepacking ultra?

I just heard from Brad Kee's ride home. He is about 10mi out as of 1320, which means with our 6am Thursday start, he may just miss Eddie's supported record from last year--Dang. Still, a great ride and moral victory for Brad. If his time were to remain fastest beyond the grand depart finish (chances may be good given the weather forecast) it will make for an interesting discussion as to what is the true course record.

Nice riding Brad. Sorry I couldn't finish it off with you.

Hey everyone. I'm humbled by all of the attention.

Craig, that kind of deep suffering attracts attention...

So...dang! I'm just in from a scratch of my own at TNGA. So sorry to hear about the quad; kind of like 'throwing a rod' in your engine.

At TD HQ we've been pulling hard for you. You were going so well...and yes, i recall the years of dry roads well and how uplifting it can be. You helped demonstrate the speed model goes beyond 'La Primavera', the 'Spring classic' (grand depart). Thanks for capturing our imaginations, and ditto on the treat a scenic doubletrack route can be when one is covering 150+mi/day along the Conti Divide.

RAAM may claim to be the hardest grand tour (debatable), Tour de France claims to be the greatest, but Tour Divide is perhaps the most beautiful and personally satisfying, which in many books, places it beyond the typical superlatives.

Get some rest! Welcome to the veteran club. We look forward to your day of redemption. No doubt you'll go even faster 2nd time around.

Jay gave me a call this morn and said he was rolling out at high noon today from Banff, barring an extended encounter with Crazy Larry and animal balloons.

Craig is putting the hammer down...

the early start from Banff put him at Butt's cabin on night one. Brilliant. Record Pace. He should easily be able to make it to Whitefish tonight. Or further if he is motivated. Go go go. And now JP on his tail? ooooohhhhh. Fun to watch.

Yep, Craig is looking good. He'll be a nice carrot for JayP. The live tracker on the Tour Divide site has been returned to the main route / stats for your viewing pleasure.

Toby, I don't know you personally as some who may have raced with you, but my take (assertions of trolling aside) is you're just a bit too emotional with your posts. Less is more here. Maybe time away will cool the jets.

http://www.crestedbuttenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3474&Itemid=44

Thanks for sharing the link Lisa. To remind all, there is a working list of TD`11 media here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0AkjYTTBAyG5KdGxhT0FNN0gwMVFDNVFRcTlYeXA5MFE&output=html
It has 'published' coverage as well as an index (sheet 2) of rider write-ups / pics.

...and for all those Tour de Hoteliers: http://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=10778350986&browse=1&qwork=768132&qsort=&page=1
The Book of The Bivvy is a half-and-half mix of how to do it and why to do it (or how not to do it, and why not to do it). Accounts of expeditions, both nice and nasty, alternate with practical chapters about the technicalities of the breathable membrane, how little kit you really can get away with and the secrets of lightweight long distance. The book closes with a selection of bivvybag expeditions to initiate the unwary into the secrets. Ronald's informed, humorous, instructive, wry look at the world of the bivouac is certainly the first, and perhaps the last, word on this unexplored territory.

enjoy some nice vintage touring content at treehugger: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/06/a-1955-british-cycling-film-shows-the-joys-of-countryside-touring.php

love the narrator's quote: 'a cycle tour without a map is like new potatoes without the smell of mint'

i'd think 2 leaderboards would suffice, one above the other. same with all the other data.

Yep. just remember, 2 LBs means two complete, fully functioning and configured trackers. Not impossible, just resources are what they are in a two-person operation. The concurrent Grand Departs thing is new. We'll be ready for 2012.

personally, i don't see how its useful to 'race' against folks headed in the other direction, aside from the theoretical / philosophical 'he made it through first' sort of thing.

Yep. mostly theoretical...but has a fun-element, i guess.

Justin is in his own world...but is being judged by the same Sobo route file as the others, so at times he's way 'off route'.

Is there some "official" way that riders are notified of potential reroutes because of the fires in NM?  I'm sitting here at home knowing that my hubby (JE) is heading toward that section and he's in an area with no cell coverage to get info.

Elizabeth, first and foremost, all riders are on their own individual expeditions out there, and must make decisions for themselves when things happen too fast on the ground for a volunteer team of TD organizers to address. Fire closures is certainly one scenario. In the absence of direction, the best riders can do is try to document their decisions thru MTBCast and hope that others follow. The Divide racing rule of thumb is to 'try' (to the best of info) to choose the (legal) detour that results in riding the maximum amount of GDMBR (within reason). quadrupling one's mileage just to accomplish this rule of thumb is bordering on unreasonable.

MTB Cast has always been one way to notify riders further back in the pack, but it's not perfect, and often can't catch those at the edge of change. There's no easy answer. We are working on the possible changes in NM and will post something here later today. This year would have been a good year for each racer to establish an alternative liaison from which they could receive info from TD 'mass communiques'. But...managing course dynamics mid-race by mass communiques is a slippery slope. How much should TD organization really engage in this management mid-race? There's liability to think of. There's the insane workload it becomes. It was never really intended to be part of the 'free race' design. This year's event was an unprecedented beast for such issues. Should we have cancelled the event in the name of avoiding it all? Probably not, but it's been a hellacious perfect storm. Double the riders and triple the route trouble. It's a bed we've made, and are doing our best to lie in. With all due respect, this is not a rant. Just a reality check.

First a big THANKS! to the gang at trackleaders.com for such a great service in the first place.

That said, is something wrong with the NoBo tracking?  They all seem to be listed as off course in 1000th place, and it is not reporting their mileage on the course.

Thanks again,

Bob

Live tracking-generated leaderboards are complex stuff, particularly when you start having two concurrent fields of racers traveling in opposite directions. Scott M may chime in with a better answer than I can provide, but suffice it to say leaderboard data are generated based on geo-fencing and a 'smart route' file that contains a unique numerical value for each mile of the route.

For example, the course mile located 5 miles out from AW can be assigned 'mile 2,740', but i'm pretty sure it cannot simultaneously be 'mile 5' (for the purposes of a leaderboard). If anyone can figure out how to assign two simultaneous values to each unique mile on course, and merge concurrent leaderboards it's, SM, but for this year's TD tracker, we went with the greater good (Sobo). Post-hoc i think we can plug Nobos into the script and generate all their leaderboard data, but we're not promising those splits for anytime soon. In the future it may be simpler for us to run two concurrent trackers on which the opposite-bound riders are simply a selectable 'rider layer', viewable by by last known location, but not in an overcomplicated merged leaderboard. I think this matter starts to delve into the philosphical question of how much to we want to directly compare (in a virtual, single GC, Sobo and Nobo grand depart efforts). I am personally uncertain of the best answer at this point.

Hopefully I'm not repeating a question, but I've seen "passed through the Gila" mentioned several times and I don't exactly know what or where that is?  Can somebody enlighten me?

http://tinyurl.com/3m3ofeg

the home page part about, "Four gentle seasons best describe the climatic conditions in the Gila National Forest." is slightly inaccurate. maybe three gentle seasons. It has lots of phenominal MTB-legal CDT riding and lots of wilderness. The first tract, in fact. great winter destination.

Roland (northbound, in southern Montana) meets McCoy, who developed the route, touring southbound.

Mac=The Man. He may be pulling a Beast of Burden but he is running big wheels now. I wonder if he is commuting home from the Missoula office to his residence in Driggs.

That rendezvous spot is amazing country. Although Roland was riding west (towards Idaho) and Nobo, he was cruising downstream along the uppermost stretch of the Missouri River, on the east side of the Divide, which 3700 miles later dumps into the Gulf of Mx not too far from where Roland began his ride in AW. To repeat that: In this area the east side of the Divide is west of the west side of the Divide. Hmmm...no, really. Talk about Roland coming full circle. I wonder just how long it takes that water to reach the gulf

Sarai Snyder's Push Pedal Crank Blog has some nice pics from this area as the Sobos went through: http://pushpedalcrank.com/?p=154

Ethan is about to finish...  What amazing athletes!  The Gunnison Valley REPRESENTING, 2 of top 3! 
An inspirational & spectacular effort!  A cold frothy cheers to you all...`Lisa

Is that comment straight outta Compton? Yep, outstanding rookie grand tour for Ethan: a guy known primarily for his extraordinary speed (at elevation).

really brought the TD back for me...  (and for some strange reason, makes me want to race it again .)

Not strange. It seems you had a pretty good overall TD`10 experience, loss of a neighbor notwithstanding.

Not that I've experienced it personally, but similar to the recollection of pain at childbirth, memory of pain/suffering in TD is directly tied to the overall experience. if it is overall positive, it's much easier to forget the pain over time and be ready to bury yourself again by the next season.

Great ride Kurt and JB! In the end the reroutes didn't mean anything (to us). It was tons of fun to watch!

Indeed. Some of the reroutes were damn hard! Another special year. I disagree that the experience will change TD forever, though. We have to look at the long term picture. Before long the northern half of the GDMBR will emerge from these late winter spells and into another NW drought and folks will be clamoring for soil moisture content--and perhaps to start a week earlier.

Jefe: You and Kurt killed it. Way to bury yourselves. Thanks for the show. Record breaking rides for overall and SS for sure. The essence of TD is rising from the ashes daily.

Enjoy the rest. Keep them legs elevated! How are your hands?