pm sent

I'm moving soon and need to unload a bunch of older but still perfectly useable gear. All of the prices include shipping to anywhere in the United States. A few of the things for sale:


Dogwood Designs Pogies. Color, black. Purchased in 2010 and still in excellent condition. $75 obo.

Wiggy's Lightweight Waders. These were missing before I raced the ITI in 2014, so I bought a new pair, but recently found them again. Purchased in 2008. They have been carried in a seat-post bag but never used. A quick test showed they are still waterproof, but you may want to seam-seal them. Invaluable piece of gear for dealing with winter stream crossings and overflow. Color, black. Size, large. $30 obo

Raichle winter mountaineering boots. Men's size 10. Vibram soles, a soft-shell waterproof gaiter built into the boot, and thinsulate insulation. When new they were rated to -50C, and have been used comfortably all day in -35F. 100 percent waterproof to the top of the boot, at lower shin level. Bolts have been added to the bottom for traction but they can be easily removed. These aren't bike boots and are not set up for cleats. But they have been sturdy and reliable — I used them in all kinds of conditions for 6 years, and they are still in excellent shape. $50 obo.

Salomon XA 10+3 hydration pack and Outdoor Research insulated bottle sleeve. The pack is a lightweight, comfortable pack for wearing a bladder underneath a coat. It has an interior pocket for storing things you'd like to keep warm and can fit a 3-liter bladder. The insulated sleeve holds a 32-ounce Nalgene bottle or Gatorade bottle. Together $35 obo.

Message or e-mail me if you are interested in any of these items. jillhomer66@hotmail.com

Baffled by Lael ... just baffled. Amazing.

Is 13 hours really the fastest hike through the Grand Canyon during the AZT? That surprises me. I suppose all that extra bike and pack weight really would make a huge difference in the pace one could sustain. This would be a fun sub-statistic to keep in the overall record.

From a biological standpoint, men are basically doped-up women. Although multi-day, self-supported races place a lot of importance on strategy, decision-making, and experience, you certainly can't discount pure physical advantage. The playing fields will never be even.

A nice video about GDMBR late in the year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa_28YltsuY


-- sigma7

Wow, props to that guy.

I've considered an autumn Divide ride. In my opinion it's the best season to ride through the Rocky Mountains — the monsoons are over, wildfire season should be over, beautiful colors, great light, cooler days, cold nights. If you're pushing into late October, you have a very good chance of hitting snowstorms on the higher passes. Even by mid-October, you could run into enough snowpack in Colorado to prevent you from continuing. Or you could have beautiful weather and no snow. It's difficult to say. But riding that late is tempting fate.

Grant's known as an ultra runner here in Boulder

Grant's known as a really fast ultrarunner everywhere else.

I didn't know he was riding the CTR. I do know he's running UTMB at the end of August. Should be an interesting transition, and fun spectating.

I wrote a blog post about my view on the "Toughest Race" designation a few months back: http://halfpastdone.com/2014/10/13/worlds-toughest/

For the TL/DR version, I tend to agree that tough is in the eyes of the beholder, and "hardest" boils down to how doable it is for the average person. The hardest race in the world would be a marathon with a two-hour time limit.

This could make for a very interesting discussion. I wouldn't dare venture into the subjective morass about what makes any particular endeavor "hardest," but it is interesting to consider the characterization of particular events.

I wouldn't characterize the Freedom Challenge as a mountain bike race, personally. It's an adventure race that's won, first and foremost, by sharp navigation skills or local knowledge/experience, along with strategic route choices. Secondary is strength for bike carrying/hoisting for the near-daily portages and frequent scaling of 10-foot game fences. Out of 1,400 miles, at least 50 are solid hiking (off trail shwhacking, with bike on back), with many more sections of largely unrideable terrain. Technical skill does make a difference between pushing and riding in many places, but arguably only a marginal difference in overall speed. It's a route I'd actually enjoy watching strong trail runners and mountain bikers take on head-to-head. The only reason the trail runners wouldn't stand a chance is the fact the FC still has long segments of Divide-like terrain (including up to 60 miles without water/service) — although very little pavement, and much rockier as a rule.

Freedom Challenge would also get dinged for being a supported race, but in my opinion it is less supported than the Tour Divide. There is an abundance of services on the GDMBR, making the self-support challenge less of an issue than it is in rural South Africa, where you have only a handful of commercial stores, no bike shops or help with bike maintenance, and large rural tracts where you are up to 300 kilometers away from the nearest towns with hospitals/hotels, etc.

Looks like a wicked snow slog over Indiana Pass.

From her tracker it seems like Tiana has made a couple of interesting detours. I'm wondering why. It seems like it can't be snow because she did go over Richmond Pass, but she turned around on Red Meadow. She also detoured out of Elkford. I'm curious if her reasons are typical TD obstacles (mud, snow, road washouts) or bigger issues (bridge out, or wide-scale avalanche debris and unstable terrain.)

Love that this thread rose to surface again after six years. I enjoyed this column as well ... although it contains none of the indignation or omniscience I've come to expect from Medred in recent years.

It reminds me of some advice I receive years and years ago from a neighbor, this eccentric old guy who lived next door to me in Idaho Falls. I was debating whether I should move to Alaska, and mentioned this to him, followed by, "Oh, but I don't know. I have a good job here, and Alaska is so far away."

His reply: "You're going to die, you know? Someday, you're going to die. So how do you want to live before that happens?"

Has anyone who's ridden this route worked out their own shuttle from SB to the start through some form of public transportation? I'm just fishing for tips for a potential solo ride in the next few weeks (weather permitting.) I couldn't attend the group ride as a friend's memorial was held the same weekend.

I'm also hoping a trip report or two shows up.

Congrats to those who were out there this past weekend enjoying springtime in the desert.

Thanks! Looks like you had beautiful conditions over the weekend. I'm in agreement that now that winter is no longer a season in California, November-February is a perfect time of year for a long weekend bike tour. Less fog on the coast, less heat, fewer people, long starry nights. Even many Tahoe area trails were more or less rideable for much of the winter. Maybe you hit an atmospheric river and 10 inches of rain, but the odds are still better than not that you'll have great weather.

I am still planning to embark on this year's Tour De Los Padres, and I'm glad that you bumped the date back, as I might end up running a 100-mile race in Alaska at the end of March and the extra recovery and re-acclimation time will be welcome. I would be interested in a place to stay on April 16. I'm driving down from the Bay Area and was hoping to find a good place to leave my car for the weekend. Is there any place nearby that fits this description?

Also ... the shuttle is from Santa Barbara to the start, I presume? I can send the deposit for that as well.

Yeah, looks like it's: Shawn Forry @ 10d19h5m. Pretty interesting to think that the bike would actually make things slower, as it's ~25lbs (or more!) you have to bring with you, given how much of the terrain isn't rideable. The hiking sections would be probably slower than without the bike, and it's anyone's guess if you would make up that time on easier terrain/downhills.

Not that I'm all that familiar with the Colorado Trail, but I'd agree that it would take a fairly strong person who also had proficient technical skills to manage a heavily loaded bike on technical terrain, to move faster than a hiker on the singletrack portions. There are serious disadvantages to ~65 pounds of bike and supplies versus 30 or 35 pounds in a small pack for an unsupported fastpacker who runs the downhills. Only if there were long enough road sections could much time be made up on a bike. May be one of the reasons why unsupported FKTs have yet to catch on in the bikepacking world. Maybe you could be a trendsetter.

Peanut butter has 2,672 calories per pound — similar to your butter/sugar mix, but you actually get quite a lot of protein. I think it's the perfect endurance food but you're only getting about 80 grams of carbohydrates with that. Just 160 grams carbs in a day might be a bit rough for any kind of high-intensity efforts without feeling bonky. Although some Antarctic skiers go with mostly fat — they also usually spend lots of time getting better fat-adapted prior to their expeditions. If you're used to burning carbs, a frame bag full of butter wouldn't work out so well in practice.

It is a fun puzzle to try to solve.

An unsupported CT trip on a bike is a cool idea. Isn't the current (fastpacker) unsupported record in the 10-day range? 10 days 19 hours I believe?

Given a 5,000-calorie-a-day allotment at ~2,000 calories a pound (assuming you're still eating carbs), I suppose that's 25-30 pounds of food at the start. Could be worse!

The prize money barely covered the race fee itself ... it's hard to really begrudge the organizers for this token prize for the winners, who certainly deserve kudos.

For what it's worth, the Fat Pursuit — like most other winter races save for the Iditarod Trail Invitational — is not a bikepacking race, in the sense that it's not a typically a multi-day race. The bikepacking set-ups are often required by race directors for safety reasons. Not all do, though. The White Mountains 100 has no required gear, despite typical temperatures well below zero and a location in a remote part of Alaska. Given these dangers, each of the five runnings of the White Mountains 100 has been successful without major mishaps. My personal hope for future "short" distance events is a move in this direction, toward letting people choose what they do and do not want to bring. But I'm not exactly looking to take on the liability of such an event, so I certainly can't criticize the required gear lists.

That Fat Pursuit was a great event, interesting course, a nice combination of friendly volunteer support and self-sufficiency. JayP told us he's thinking about extending the race to a multi-day distance next year, which I think is fantastic. The Iditarod Trail Invitational is still limited to 50 participants, and otherwise there's still a dearth of real winter bikepacking events out there — although it's awesome how many winter events are springing up these days.

Thanks to all who made this fun event happen! 

Frame bag sold.