Sorry to hear a few riders are dropping.  Y'all know what's best for you.  And thanks for letting us armchair cheerleaders cheer you on from afar.  We'll see you next year hopefully. 

And as for the hiker biker debate... well, it's not really a debate:

...but don’t be that guy yelling out of his truck, trying to get his social media interview...

I liked the from-afar, on the ground reporting we got at the end of the TD2015 but felt that the up close and personal interviews-from-the-car were too much and did in fact interfere with the individuals racing.  But that's just like my opinion, man.  I went out and watched a half dozen rider pass me during the TD three or four years ago and one of them felt slightly uncomfortable with talking to us in case it was misconstrued as support.

Just stumbled onto this thread and am going to subscribe.  I thru-hiked the PNT in 2007 and am the administrator of the PNTA Forums (http://pnta.proboards.com/board/1).  Most of what I'd comment on has been addressed in above in this thread but I'd re-iterate that a thru-ride of the trail is very do-able but some of the most epic portions would involve alternate routes (the Pasayten in particular). 

Dylan is slated to line up in hopes of adding the Triple Crown Challenge to his resume this year. 

Thanks for making the sport accessible to us, Scott.

Looks like if I can get another personal best in Ctr - say 7.5 days- I will have a much better Time than last year.

I look forward to watching your progress, Mark. 

Nice to see Josh checking in but without giving away his winning pie-related strategy.  It's so cool to see the sub-20 day riders continuing to roll across the finish.  Keeping a 135+ mile a day average from one side of the country to another is no small feat! 

If Dylan goes 8:04:01 on the CTR he'll be under Kurt's current total triple time.

His 2010 race on the CT came in at 07:07:40.  I believe he toured the route (albeit at a very fast pace) with his wife in the past few years as well so he knows the terrain well. 

Five finishers all under Jay P's ghost.  Stellar performance out there, Alex!

Congratulations, Dylan on your stellar performance and a solid 4th place finish!  

Next up: Colorado Trail and hopefully a Triple Crown Challenge completion.  

AZT 2015: 08:06:58
TD 2015: 15:03:01
CT 2015: tbd

Awesome write-up and finish photos, jmh, thank you!  The pic of all three with their bikes sitting at the border is pretty rad.  

Dylan doesn't look to been stationary for more than about seven hours in the past 60+ so his staying ahead of JPs ghost will be well-deserved.  Alex should do he same too.  I'm still cheering for all the riders following!

And we have a full podium!  Never have I been so stoked to be refreshing my web browser on a Friday evening!  Really looking forward to seeing Dylan and Alex roll in tomorrow and the rest of these amazing athletes after that.  My hat is off to you all.  

Thanks for the real time insight, jmh!  The tailwind you speak of has opened up Kato's lead by 11 miles.  Will the intrepid duo be able to make that up in the remaining 60 miles!?!

Agreed. Do you think Taylor and Harris will ride all night to try and finish under the record time as well?

I hope so, but Dylan has only sat still for two hours in the past 60.  He is a badass but pushing through another 280 miles will require digging extremely deep.  

Also, while Kato definitely broke away at that point. One can't forget that he was around 10 hours behind Neil for most of the race. Towards the end of Colorado he really picked it up and levelled the field. And then he had a short sleep last night and has kept the pace today. Incredible

It was his breakway from Dylan at hour 178.85 that marked the start of his participation in podium contention.  

so where, how, when did JK make his big break? and what did that break look like? an overnight effort? A spring?

This breakaway took place at hour 341.36 in the race.

Even if he comes in 3rd, which is amazing, I think his narrative far exceeds whatever JayP or Neil accomplish (both of whom have produced stellar performances)

I totally agree.  From that moment at 7 days 10 hours 50 minutes when he broke away from Dylan and joined Neil and JayP he has absolutely crushed it! 

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Trying to fill in some info gaps here.  Does anyone happen to know the exact Tour Divide finish times for the following?  The info on Trackleaders is a couple minutes off since their SPOT trackers didn't fire exactly at the finish line.  It's probably +/- only a minute or so but I'm still curious. 

Forest Baker (2013) TrackLeaders shows 18:11:51
Mark Caminiti (2014) TrackLeaders shows 27:10:25

[18:11:51]

I was looking into this further today with all the excitement around the TD finishing up.  Dylan has told me he hopes to attain the status of Challenge finisher this year and when I went to look into it further I see the page about it is missing some info.  I can't seem to find exact results data from the TD as the official results page only goes up to 2010.  The items in bold below are from TrackLeaders and don't have an exact timestamp from the border but it's very close.  Also, please double check my math on the totals, I'm particularly good at adding up days, hours, and minutes. 

Kurt Sandiforth (2012)
   AZT   09:05:36
   TD   16:22:04
   CT   05:10:15
   Total    31:13:19

Forest Baker (2013)
   AZT   10:14:45
   TD   18:11:51
   CT   07:13:51
   Total   35:40:27

Eric Foster (2013)
   AZT   10:11:15
   TD   23:11:50
   CT   06:23:00
   Total   39:46:05

Mark Caminiti (2014)
   AZT   11:12:38
   TD   27:10:25
   CT   08:08:56
   Total   46:31:59