They are going for it!!! After 14 days of hard riding they are putting everything they've got into closing this out. Josh has put in an awesome come from behind ride to hit the lead in the last hours of the last day. Incredible stuff. He was up 4miles, now 6 miles ... and now Neil and JayP are going to have to respond soon or that gap is going to be too much to drag in.

It is so cool that this is a no-drafting race. GO GO GO.

[It's how you do it.]

I have no problem about winning. It's how you do it. We don't race for prizes, it's honour. Kind of like the grand tours where the unwritten rule is you don't take time out of your opponents on the last day. And in multiday bikepacking where it's unsupported you break them before that. It's not win at all costs. You race with honour and within the rules. Because over multi days it would be so easy to break the rules.

(This is just my opinion)

I have the same opinion as cccniuk. Perhaps it's cultural, being from a former part of British Empire.

The racing has been amazing this year - whatever plays out all these top 5 have blown apart JayP's record and are phenomenal athletes. Does anyone know what the previous GD record was?  (i.e. for a GD start rather than aiming for the perfect weather window)

It's just gone zero dark thirty and the top three are settling in for a long nights ride. With Josh just tracking 20 miles behind them I don't think they'll stop for a sleep and let him get into the mix. Josh will also ride through I guess as there is not enough road left for him to catch them on the bike now - he's 20 miles behind with 200 miles to go and he's not going to be able to ride 10% faster than the two front runners.

Alex Harris and Dylan Taylor are going to have an interesting ride in to the finish also between the two of them also it seems.

EDIT: ... proved wrong above as Jay and Neil have stopped for some shut-eye. Glad I'm in on a good timezone to see what happens through the night!

his road gearing can drop Neil's 1x no problem?

I read a number of articles when choosing a road bike on bike gearing and overall pace impacts, and the common thread was that given that the number of people who can really push the big gears at 90-100 rpm on the flat can be counted on the fingers of a careless woodsman, the gearing issue may not be such a significant factor. Of course, I see just now that Jay pulled out a mile on Neil on a slight downhill ....

By changing the scale on the route profile to 10 mile steps on the grid, you can really see how Neil and Josh are closing the gap to Jay.

I'll put my colours out there and say I think that Neil will take it. Why? He's pulled in every break that Jay has made and it's strongly indicative that he's got the better raw pace during this race so far. Josh - he'll get the boost of having something to chase, and will certainly have them in his view eventually, but the effort to catch them will surely take a toll, plus Neil and Jay seem to have better raw pace. Jay - with his experience will certainly be able to adapt his end game strategy on the fly better than anyone out there. As I write I think that maybe that negates Neil's pace ....

This is an amazing finish. And to think both Dylan and Alex are under race record pace but not in the top three!!!

What a ride from Will Bodewes. He was 50th in Butte and is now 10th!!! Totally riding like a veteran and he's only 17 years old.

They all seem to be pretty much aligned on their bike speeds so it seems like it'll come down to who closes this out with the best sleep strategy over the final two days. Fingers crossed no mechanical's come into play. What a finish we're going to have.

RobD looks to have back-tracked this morning from Poncha Springs to Salida - bike repair or forgot something?

Must have been bike repair as he spent 45 minutes at Absolute Bikes.

This has been great to follow as always and without Trackleaders.com and MTBcast.com it would be a long wait to pick up blogs and posts of what went down. They've got a DONATE button on their pages and this year I for one am certainly going to click it. I'd hate to see this coverage disappear.

What kind of fork was Seb Dunne using? Steel or carbon?

Seb's bike set up for the TD (Walty Ti 29er rigid):

https://bikingbethany.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/sebs-td-gear-list-and-bike-setup/

It looks like the second group (7-12) has dropped one rider with Martin Vit now 60 miles off the back. Lael is looking strong in 10th and riding 90 miles ahead of the ghost of Eszter. Up front Josh Kato is edging slowly closer to the leading duo - wow!!

Just as they head into NM, which many say is the toughest section, the race for the win is getting even more intense. Will they get under 15 days?  

Salsa - personally I would prefer if they had a 650B El Mariachi!! Salsa Cutthroat ... I wonder how much the carbon Pivot's sales got a boost from Mike Hall's amazing 2013 ride?

If you're interested, this is Josh Kato's Day 2 ride on Google Earth from his spot data on Kenji Kato's Youtube channel. Great to get a feel for 2016!!!

Day 2 ride:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBK9o3XGQrU

Channel page:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ42VmIxil4UUMwMmGvGMOw

I get the feeling that this is going to come down to whoever can put in the longest sleepless ride to the border. Is 36hrs feasible at the end of a race like this? 48 hrs?

Neil made up an hour on the bike between Hartsel and Salida, so he clearly still has the legs at this stage.

The race for 7th is pretty tight as well with 7 riders all pretty close at Wamsutter and Marshall Bird leading the chasing pack. The depth at the top this year is amazing - there's 15 people ahead of last year's second place marker at Atlantic City. Can they all keep this up for the second half of the race? Will there be a come from behind ride like Calvin Decker's last year?

If Lael could go through Rawlins and have it still count, how come Saul Britton couldn't?

Saul has not been DSQ'ed or marked as Alternator - his dot colour is still yellow as an ITT, just as it was from the beginning. It seems that despite the Rawlins diversion he took, his time still counts as far as I can tell.

Lael is riding over Union Pass, oops. So I guess she's using 2014 route details and will take the Rawlins route also unless she finds out on the road about the new route. Similar mistakes have happened in the past and Matt Lee got the riders to sit out a penalty period when the route taken was faster than the new route.

Being an underground race it is something that can easily happen to anyone.

Ugh is right iainsm. Hope she is not using last years map...she is currently on the old route :-(

Here's hoping that Lael has a smart phone, a signal, and checks Trackleaders in the morning.

Wow! Six within 60 miles up front and all still in front of the JayP record. Amazing riding out there.

I'm curious about the story behind the stick on the Mirko Haeckers bar bag ... is it to fend off wild animals or hold something together??

I'm in the process of building up a bike for TD 2016 and Im leaning towards a Rohloff, does anyone know what the general number of riders running one each year is?
Also I can't pick too many front dynamo hubs from the photos. I take it these riders are relying on hotels/motels etc to charge their night time riding lights?

Hi GM,

For numbers running Rohloffs have a look at the TD Rides list in Chris Bennett's starters file and look through the bike descriptions in column J - most with Rohloffs write it there it seems.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnV6xT65HkPRdEx5eUtMaTZmVWQ5TTVlUlNhaFg2RFE&usp=sharing

If you are planning to ride the TD, the Cordillera's which you can get on Lulu (https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=cordillera&type=) are a great read. There are 6 volumes and all wonderful reads. V6 has a split of gear from those who answered some questions, including that 10/86 used Rohloff's, 52/85 hard no suspension, and 22/84 used dynamos.

FWIW, I'm building a TD bike for 2016 after a year of reviewing multi forum posts and I am going with Rohloff and dynamo hub (SONS).

Cheers, KiwiDave