The Hansons are out -- Jenn not feeling well and the heat got to her.  I suggested maybe an ITT next week.  Current forecast for Fri/Sat is looking a lot friendlier than this 90 degree roasting.

That is always the big question.  Time will tell.

Yep, easier to rip it on day 1 than it is on day 2!

Just got some news on Diedra Bustos who is our red lantern (back of the pack).  She seems to have a good plan but her SPOT batteries died already (rechargeables).  So she is fine at last report and will get new batteries in Patagonia or Sonoita.  She is shooting for 50 miles a day, but at this point, nothing to worry about.

The front end is crushing it indeed.

It's a warm day as expected.  Some afternoon breeziness but nothing as bad as last year's desiccating wind.

Steve Terry had a quick pace in the Canelos until crashing and busting his der hanger.  He's a scratch.  Robert Kennedy (ITT) also reported a scratch.

Got a couple more ITTers tomorrow, as well as our southbound folks, still to start.

9 people still showing 0 feet after 2 hours including Wicks, Greg Hardy, and Curtiss Barrett.  Neil B showing no update at mile 1.9 of the 300.  Spot update issues or something more troubling?

Just tracking hiccups.  The veterans should know better!    Some are showing up slowly, like Dave H from OZ and Greg.  

"Pivot 429sl E-bike version" Did I read this bike spec correctly? Ebike on AZT750?

That's Max Morris, and surely a joke.  Though I see that Pivot really does make an E-bike?  Didn't know that.

I’m planning on cleaning out and restocking the Kelvin and Freeman Road caches on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully most of the pack is through by then. Anywhere else I should try and hit up?

That'd be great.  Coordinate with Schilling -- I think he'll head to one of those but between the two of you, I very much appreciate it.

For anyone driving from Picketpost south yet today, do not go through Florence. A big country music festival had traffic backed up for miles north of Florence.

Oh crap, it's County Thunder this week?!  I've been stuck in it before but I don't think it's coincided with AZTR before.

Jerry Q from Tucson is 70 years young and already past Canelo Pass.  Go Jerry!

Todd from Durango just got underway.  He was planning 10pm but got here early.  He is an adventure racer so has experience in sleep dep.

Colton started this morning as well, a Tucson rider returning from last year.

Got another rider, Chris from PHX starting this eve to take advantage of a cooler first 12 hours.  Quiet passing through the Canelos, he says.  Sounds nice and an interesting and perhaps wise strategy.

Deanna Adams scratched after Patagonia, a few days ago.  She smashed her Garmin at some point and didn't have navigation.

Jeremy Noble is already digging into Highline, blazing the way.

Curt Jardine is mysteriously in Mammoth.... not sure what is up.

And Aaron Kennedy may have bailed at Sahuarita Rd yesterday.  No new points since then suggests that.

That's it for our early ITTs.  Glad to see so many and less pressure on the Grand Depart this year.

Cell service at Parker TH you have to be kidding me. Times have changed.

Indeed. Upgraded or new tower on Red Mtn outside of Patagonia.  If you can see Red Mtn, you have 4G.  Used to barely be able to get a text out just 3-4 years ago.

Lets bury the planning thread negativity
Its time to race !!!!
I am in sierra vista its warm out
See u all at the border and on course possibly or at parker got to say hi to Scott and the better half.

Amen.  I was thinking about a new 750 rule that you have to give me a high five at Parker!  Haha.  See ya soon.

The time is here!  Forecast is for hot/dry conditions.

We already have some ITTers on route.  I am at Parker Lake TH with a box of SPOTs ready to go.

Race site:  http://topofusion.com/azt/race.php

Tracking link: http://trackleaders.com/aztr18

MTBcast: http://mtbcast.com

Yeah, anyone who was paying attention or read the race site knew about the limit, and it didn't fill until 1.5 weeks out.  That said, it is the first year for the limit, so it hasn't traveled by word of mouth so much, apparently, and didn't get onto the AZT Facebook pages, which if you pay attention to, I do not post to -- especially because there are two of them!

In other news, Palisades spigot is ON.  That's good news given the heat.  It was a warm morning down here at Parker, and the trail is looking a little dry/dusty.

A few ITTers are off today.  It's past time to move on to the during-race discussion thread and call this the planning one.

New Race discussion thread:

http://www.bikepacking.net/forum/ultra-racing/2018-aztr300750-race-discussion-thread-13401/

Thanks everyone.

A word from the trail
The route is fracking amazing

Heck yeah, thanks for the mid-ITT update and stoke.

Putting the bike together I noticed cracks in the rear rim around the nipples something that Vaseline and bandaids won’t fix. I had a new wheel shipped over night to Roadrunner Cycles in Tucson.  Elliot went above and beyond to get my bike going again. Im hugely indebted to him as he also sorted the bike out last year when a sidewall blew out while riding through Tucson to the start line. He is also easily persuaded to drink bear at Peublo Vida.

Yeah Elliot!  Definitely a great shop to hit up for any last minute needs.

I just did, thanks again Scott!

Thanks, Aaron.  I know there a lot of people out there passionate about this trail and the unofficial challenge that the AZTR is, and that you are among them--the group that really gets it.

Is there a limit as to how many people can camp at the 300 start line? Do you prefer us in the campground or can we camp at the trail head parking lot area?
Thank you.

Campground is fine, but since the race is usually 50/50 split between 300/750 so there shouldn't be more than 74 people camping at the trailhead.  I would consider that the limit, but we should be well below that (even with spectators), so feel free to plan to camp there.

Thanks for asking.

Thanks for the support and gratitude, folks.  Getting this thing off the ground has been more challenging than usual this year, for a number of reasons.  Inevitably a small number of people are going to be unhappy and are going to behave badly toward me and the race.  I've accepted this as a part of putting the race on, but it does still suck.

In the email you mention “10) Make sure you have the latest (2018 rev1) GPX files!”. Can you confirm that rev1 is the first file you posted - maybe a week or so ago.  Or is this a newer one that supersedes the one I downloaded and pushed to my etrex? If memory serves me correctly the one I have is the first file you posted and is the same as the one that is currently posted. Sorry I can’t check what file I actually downloaded as I don’t have access to the computer that does all of my gps stuff.

Good question.  Any time I release a new version it'll get a new 'rev number' to avoid this confusion.  So rev1 is the current and only released as of now.

Ha!  Well, I've been planning on this event for almost a year, in talking with past participants and reading the 'AZT Racer Page', there was nothing about all these rules/requirements/deadlines/rider limits.   I just re-read the 'new' rules and there is still a lot of grey area.  Why not just make it absolutely NO support/water caches/trail magic for people treating it like a 'honest race'?  Why not set a specific rider limit?  Why not specify if a tracker is required or not?   Sounds like half the 'racers' stash stuff for themselves or have 'friends' that magically show up and aid the riders.   Really needs to be black and white or strip away the 'race' tagline and call it a general 'ride' and break it into finisher/non-finisher. 

What do you mean by the AZT Racer Page?  The facebook group?

The website has very clearly stated that there is a 74 person limit.  Again, I'm sorry you didn't sign up earlier.  The race only very recently filled.

As I explained earlier, the limit is to control the overall impact of the race.  And also to comply with the USFS 'no permit' group size limit.

Thanks for the clarification... Full Disclosure, I placed 2 gallons of water at Redington cache last week with my initials on them, then "AZTR after 6 April", "Public after 10 April". I honestly didn't see that this was a violation until that post a few ago where you clarified that. If anyone goes to Redington, feel free to cross everything out, except "public", but I will not have time this week to go and correct my error. I will try to bring a sharpie to change them to public when I get there during Race... Will this work for my Rookie Mistake?

If you bring a sharpie to change it to public, and clean up the empties at a later date, all good.

Rookie mistakes happen, I understand.  The rule does very clearly say "no caches", meaning don't make your own cache.  I do understand that the water caches were not well defined so there was room for confusion.

AZTR Rules

The rules pages just got a lot longer:

http://topofusion.com/azt/race-rules.php

I have extended it, clarified things, and added a lot of info that used to only be in the email I sent out to everyone. 

This year I've become aware that the existing simple set of rules is not clear enough and can even be prone to exploitation.  So I've expounded upon on what my view of self-supported bikepack racing is, which I believe is general consensus across the sport -- there is not much variation between the bigger and well established races.

The info on caches / trail etiquette needs to be there so that the general public can see it and better understand our race, too. 

The failing, in this area, is mine.  Some form of this information should have been on the website before this year.

Please read carefully and ask questions if they arise.  Thanks everyone.

I plan on riding the AZT300 next week.  Just got a SPOT tracker.   Is it too late to sign up/add it to the tracking page?   I thought I read that it is full, but never saw a deadline. 

Sorry, we've reached the limit for riders starting on Thursday.  This limit is to help insure that the race can continue and to limit its impact on the trail and other users, so I hope you understand.

The option for an ITT starting a day or two before/after is still available (any day, actually) -- let me know if you'd like to do that and I'll send you the tracking registration link.

Checked the trail conditions at Aspen Corner today.  A couple patches of snow only in the shade.  overall looked pretty dry.  Should be no problem for most.  The Southbounders may encounter some patches but I think it will be easy to ride or walk around a few spots. 

Excellent, thanks for that Brad!  I drove through Flag (and Jacob Lake) today and my read on the conditions jives with what you first hand reported and what I said earlier -- North Rim snow detour is in play, but everything else is full route!

Update on Caches... I added 2 gallons to Freeman and counted something like 25 gallons public. Kelvin TH needs some water. I added more than planned, but there's only maybe 8 gallons public there (obviously there's a spigot just passed the river on the left at the County Garage). I pulled all the old containers and trash. Tiger Mine TH can use some more also, there was probably 8-10 gallons there public. Because of putting more in Kelvin, I was not able to add to the Tiger Mine underpass... If anyone can add to that and Kelvin, that would be great. FYI- Freeman had a bunch of jugs on top of the cache. Looked a little sloppy and temps are rising, so I cleaned things up a bit and put everything inside of the cache. The wonderful Trail Angel that had been parked there all March has sadly returned to Scottsdale until Nov. When I talked with him a few weeks ago, I tried to convince him to stay another week into April, but he says its too hot!

It's too hot for trailer-life, for sure.  80 is about the limit in our little Scamp.

Thank-you very much for checking in on all those caches, and taking care of them.  We should be able to get them restocked as you suggest before the race.  Then even more importantly, we need to check on them towards the tail end of the race, clean and replenish.

Hmm yeah I guess I figured that meant in non designated cache spots, such as random locations on the trail or other spots only yourself might only know of.  My bad.   The box at tiger mine is now full unless you want to start stacking, however the one by the underpass was nearly empty so maybe he'd like to drop them there too?   I know majority of people ride into oracle anyway but some like to hammer on straight through.

No worries, honest misunderstanding.

Self-support and equal opportunity are the guiding principles, but I think the rules needed to spell out more what that means.  That is my failing.

ATA says the box at the Tiger TH will be going away (but not before the race).  Sounds like the one at the culvert will be full soon again, thanks ive_been_framed!

Just got back from dropping 12 gallons at tiger mine cache and cleaning out empties/trash.  Four are marked for people ( and dated so if you're there after the dates have at it) and 8 are marked aztr/public.  I know its not much but it's easiest one I can get to in my car and it's better than nothing.  Removed empties from the one near the underpass as well.

Thanks for that!  8 to the public pile is good.  Kurt is going to drop more at Tiger and given that many riders will opt to resupply in Oracle, it isn't as crucial as Freeman is.

Are you saying that 4 gallons you dropped off are labeled for specific AZT racers?  If so, please re-read the rules page on the site.  Don't worry, it's probably just an honest misunderstanding, but all bottles dropped off at caches should be for public use. This isn't so much for the future of the race, but for a level playing field, especially for those coming in from out of state, country or continent!  Thanks.