And C$ goes helmet-less once again...

Trackleaders lists him as a rookie, but I think he is smart enough to have dropped his helmet in Silver City. No tricky descents before there.

I may paint a line across HWY 17 at the 250 turnoff to remind SoBo TD riders to start their timers for Cjell's La Manga Challenge.

We'd all hate for someone to forget and miss out or start their time too early.  LOL

As a blue dot junky, I believe this is a bit too much for what is merely a race within an underground race, just as I believe it adds to the legend if the prize money would indeed be stolen by some bastard. After all, these racers are not beggars! Some shopkeepers told me that they easily spend tens of dollars on junk food. And now that they have been told by Saint Matthew to stay away from motel rooms, where they might be tempted by nightly company to delay an early morning start, the budget is even less strained. There are not so many challenges where staying virgin for 20+ days is believed to speed up the finishing time.

John Schilling, thanks again for the info. I did Casner yesterday. My HAB added up to a lot more than 0.5 mi, but then my bike was loaded with 30 kg and very rear-heavy. I found it very rewarding.

So far, I've always gotten myself off the trail (I believe if you get yourself into trouble, your responsibility to get yourself out of it if at all possible).

Roland,
I still feel sorry that I didn't join you on the TD2011. You are a tough guy, but I doubt the wisdom behind this ethic to get yourself out of the mess if possible. Are you sure that the puncture occurred at the accident itself or could it have been caused while you were struggling on your way out?
Long time ago I had an accident on Everest, a slab avalanche swiping me and my climbing partner down over an ice cliff where we landed on a snow plateau. It turned out that I got bruised ribs but my companion was less lucky. He gradually lost conscienceness. A fractured rib had punctured his lung and at the altitude of 6800 meter (22,000 ft) that is like suffocating. It took the whole team several days to carry him down to basecamp and on a lorry to a hospital. I could descent on my own power. I guess that if my companion hadn't lost conscienceness we would also have tried to descent by ourselves, but later I was told that when you suspect fractured ribs it is much better to wait for immobilized transport on a stretcher. The same advice probably holds for leg fractures.

On a bike I only expienced a couple of minor accidents, resulting in a clavicle fracture, a fractured wrist, bruised ribs. It wasn't my fault and I was glad to accept car transport. A couple of days later I was riding the bike again, although not at full speed.

My guess: early September is too late for the GDMTR.
I read many GD blogs, both NS and NS rides, and based on these and my own GD rides I drew a chart to highlight the seasonal windows. Please regard the contours as soft. This is not rocket science because the climate conditions vary from year to year. It also depends on the pace you are able to go. The faster you go, the earlier you arrive at the high passes in southern Colorado, which I think are the most vulnerable to getting blocked by snow. I would guess that if you get to NM before mid-October you are OK and maybe need to make a few bypasses.
I certainly haven't read all blogs from late starters, but here you have two. One is from a guy who started on August 20 at the Canadian border and made it to the Mexican border early November. but met nasty snow and mud on some passes.
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1&doc_id=4227&v=DC#98352
The other blog is from a guy who left Banff around mid-September and by mid-October decided to deviate from the GDMBR south of the Tetons because of the snow and cold.
http://www.whileoutriding.com/usa/idaho-and-wyoming/jackson-wy-to-flaming-gorge-ut

I also guess there are many bikers reading this who maybe do not have an overall knowledge of the GDMBR, but can provide more reliable information about the local bottlenecks in this chart.


   





 

I think your southbound Divide ride from Banff can start up till end of August. The graph is obviously schematic and varies from year to year, but sums up the time windows that I gathered from reading many GD blogs.

Thanks for the nice story. The good news is that the baby heads aren't as bad as I feared and there is a local brewery waiting downhill. The bad news, there is a lot more uphill than I imagined, 4300 ft! I hope next May sky will be as blue as in your pics.

Hi all! This spring I will ride Route 66 with detours on dirt roads in neighbouring parks. One is from Williams to Sedona. Because in the Red Rock Wilderness bikes are forbidden, the most direct road seems the Casner Mnt Trail, a 4-wheel drive. From YouTube parts of this trail seem very stony. Has anyone descended it? I am on a loaded MTB; walking the bike for half a mile is no problem. 

Last summer I had to find out myself how to get from AW to Tucson. There are three options:
1. The shuttles between US and Mexico.
2. A taxi to Lordsburg or Deming, from where public transport to Tucson or El Paso is available
3. Biking out.
There are several daily shuttles from AW to Phoenix or Tucson or Albuquerque. The disadvantage is that you have to wait in the middle of nowhere, usually in blasting heat, uncertain whether they have a free place. Find names of shuttle companies in http://www.mataortizcalendar.com/traveling.html .
Sam Hughes from Hachita is willing to taxi riders from AW to Lordsburg or Deming. However, Sam is now 83 and had health problems recently. His telephone number is on the ACA map and his house is next to Hachita's Post Office.
Finally, the bike out to Tucson (3-4 days). I was told that the San Luis pass directly west of AW to Cloverdale is closed by the Border Police. So you have to return first on NM-81 to Hachita. Assuming that you don't want to bike the Interstate 10 to Tucson, because of the nauseous diesel fumes, the most direct route is NM-9 over Animas (good grocery ; Hachita's grocery is out of business) to Rodeo. Then to Portal, dirt road over Onion Saddle to Chiricahua National Park, Gleeson,  Tombstone, Sonoita, Vail to Tucson. Or fully on paved roads: Rodeo - Douglas - Bisbee - Sierra Vista - Sonoita - Vail - Tucson.  There is also an intriguing dirt road, rarely used by bikers, between Animas and Douglas called the Geronimo Trail. See http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1&page_id=310078&v=3D .

I think most of the 'rules' issues would vanish if the informal rule that racers arriving after more than 150% of the winner's time are not listed, is enforced. With the current record of 16 days, that would set the expected deadline to roughly 24 days. This would probably also reduce the crowd in Banff, as it lays the bar considerably higher. There is nothing against fast-touring, but why participating in an event meant as a race?

This entry is for dummies who, like me until yesterday, have no idea what a Schlumpf crankset is.

Some days ago I wondered how northbounder Cjell Money is switching gears on his 2-gear bike. Reading his blog once again the word Schlumpf popped up. Here is a nice video about what a Schlumpf crankset does.

Huggacast Episode 50: Schlumpf Crankset

Apparently the mountain drive crankset has two ratios, 1:1 and 2.5:1. In the latter mode, the front chainwheel turns around once for 2.5 pedal turns. The crankset fits in common size bottom shells.
 

Schlumpf High Speed Drive installation

The price is around 500 dollars. In providing just 2 gears, this makes Rohloff look like a bargain in giving 14 gears for around $1000.

Looking at Cjell Money's statistics on Trackleaders, a blatant error pops up: route distance per day is only 83.35 mi. Apparently his Route mile (= distance-still-to-be-covered for northbounders) is divided by the elapsed time, which is clearly nonsense. In his case the distance-covered is 2745 - (Route mile) - (Gila bypass correction). The Gila bypass runs between points 39.2 mi and 183.4 mi on map 6A. According to Google Maps the bypass is 131 mi, so the Gila correction is about 13 miles. This works out to about 147 mi/day, which is close to Dylan Taylor's, currently in 10th position.

A nice picture of CM's bike is in his blog http://cjellmoney.wordpress.com/ under Divide Riding. Am I right in assuming that this is virtually a two-gear bike? To keep the chain tensioned, the number of teeth on the aligned chainrings must stay the same. Otherwise you would have to take chain links in or out, which seems unpractical in a race like this. Could one of the Black Sheep guys comment?

CM is my favorite racer. In true TD spirit he has soloed for almost 11 days now and has some 7 solo days ahead. No other front racer comes near to this. 

the Teton view isnt bad either...

There is indeed some merit in suffering with a lofty vision.
As for the beautiful descent into the Warm River gorge, that roughly starts at 215.6 mi on map 2A and is also there for those that take the easy dirt-road bypass.

The leaders are now on the 40-mile long Idaho rail trail.

I hated that portion. Loose black sand/gravel on top, extremely washboarded, rutted. Pure torture, and I suspected riding it it was on the Geneva Conventions' list of prohibited practices!

It's not even real pretty, but even if it was, you can't really look at anything around you but your front tire, as deviating an inch from the "best" (meaning not the absolute worst) line means you're gonna catch the loose sand and stop or/and fall off your bike. 

Aren't there better routes in that part of the world out there? 

There is a good dirt road running almost parrallel to the rail-trail, roughly between 197.0 and 212.3 mi on map 2A, in close distance. That cuts some 15 miles of this terrible trail. You can see it by zooming in on the Life Tracker; it is called Eccles Rd. For tourers highly recommendable ; however, as the rules go, not for the racers.