I have a coach, he's got me training around 20 hours a week

I don't think I know anyone who consistently trains 20 hours per week. Should be more than enough for base fitness. When I raced TD my theory was that my regular riding and racing would cover most of the bases. I didn't really do anything more or different and I felt good on the divide. Example, I raced my last normal race about 12 days beforehand, didn't switch to divide mode until about 10 days out. So if you are a bike racer, with race fitness and some long rides thrown in, actual fitness shouldn't be a concern.

I'm always cold and have yet to find a way to deal with it.

Bring the appropriate gear for your individual needs. If you are typically cold, then a warmer sleep system and an extra layer will be worth far more than the weight they add to you kit. Having the right gear can be the difference between staying relatively comfortable and a dnf. I carried head to toe rain gear and was glad I did. I also remember touching the cold threshold of my clothing at some point every day until Colorado.

Little disasters generally trip me up.

Off the cuff answer, "Well then you're F***ed!" But seriously, for this type of event this is probably more important than fitness or gear. Take opportunities in you life and riding, to train your mental toughness. Between now and June 14th, when anything bad, tough or unexpected happens to you, Instead of getting upset, embrace it, look at it as a chance to practice positivity and perseverance in the face of adversity.

I was wondering how necessary the que sheets are.

Unnecessary. I took Marshall Bird's advice, never made or used any ques from the maps or narratives. I followed his lead and made profiles from the split pieces of the track using Topofusion. These cues highlighted elevation and distance but zero direction. I added towns, resources and trail/ road surface. Next time I'll put in split times between each point. You could get a rough idea of all this simply by switching back and forth to the profile view on your GPS while following the track. Navigation is handled solely by GPS, why would you want to look at maps or tedious cues/cycle-computers anyway? I also cut the service directories out of the maps and carried those. But sometimes it is nice to have the actual map to grasp the next several hours. For a rookie, I would use GPS with topo maps installed, have some sort of profile/ key resource cues and carry the maps for reference.

For the Grad Depart, is there usually an actual start time on June 14th, or do people just roll out whenever they get going?

There is of course an actual start time, which is kind of the point of a GD.

would you use something like that on the tour divide?

If I can get a 2.5 to 3 liter bladder to fit into my very compact frame triangle, I think so. I made it through 95% of the route with three large specialized bottles, roughly 2.2 liters. I also carried a two liter bladder, which was needed maybe four or five times. Pulled it out for the first time in the basin to give you an idea. I'd be comfortable with a 3 liter capacity, you can always throw a disposable 600 gatorade in your pocket. I also need to test drinking from a bladder, low in your frame.

Any specific reason to switch from bottles Craig?

I prefer bottles for everything. Haven't used a bladder or camelback for 10 years. Working on becoming a weight weeny, thinking outside the box or bottle in this case. I realized that my specialized big mouth bottles weigh 90- 100 grams a piece. Add carbon cages and bolts, multiply by 3 and I had invested a little under 400 grams in fluid transport. I also had a two liter platypus big zip bladder that weighs 157 grams. If I could trade it all for a 6 liter platypus water tank listed at 124 grams, I would shave nearly a full pound while retaining the same functional water capacity for 99% of the route. Just thinking.

An example of what I am looking for: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~sandiway/bike/bikebag/index.html
Posted on: January 06, 2013, 05:23:38 AM
Posted by: ETURK

I've been thinking along the same lines. Use a large, ideally square bladder, fold and tape it to fit your frame. Considering the dark side, using a bladder.

Got a happy new year's card in the mail a couple days ago from Holland Lake Lodge. I imagine they send them to all of the past year's patrons. Christian at the lodge was very nice when Ollie and I stayed there. We arrived at around 10:30 for our third night, it was kind of funny because we just about caught an ITT racer on the service road to the lodge. We got close enough to see a bike in the distance, wondering if one of our chasers some how got ahead of us. We arrived and realized that it wasn't someone from the GD, I'm sorry I've forgot the racer's name. Cristian, who runs the lodge is awesome. He of course knows about the race but wasn't expecting riders just yet. His kitchen staff wouldn't arrive until the next day but he was very accommodating, making something for each of us himself. He let us know breakfast would be at 7 but Ollie and I wanted to get going a little earlier. He asked what we would need, mostly oatmeal, and sandwich stuff, told us he would set it out and gave us the run run of the kitchen. When we got up in the morning, oatmeal and coffee were set out, as well as the sandwich stuff, fruit and yogurt in the fridge. Holland Lake Lodge is one of those awesome spots along the route, Christian is one the fantastic hosts that make the ride so fulfilling. If your timing works out make sure to stop by.

Even after the failure I still love shimano peddles. The new 980 xtr have shallower bearings to accommodate thinner peddle bodies with less deck height for better efficiency. Shimano has been working out the kinks since these peddles came out. I knew about the issues and had toasted two sets of early production run 980's. Deciding between xt, which I knew were bombproof, and xtr was something I deliberated on right up until I left for Banff. I started with a new warranty replacement set of xtr's confident in shimano's ability to resolve the issue and because I was greedy for every once of efficiency. In the end they made it roughly to Grants. Should have run xt, could've sent peddles in my package to change out as a preventative measure. If I were racing again it would be with xt and with total confidence. I think 980 peddle bodies are 14mm thick and xt, deore, older xtr are 19mm.
I wouldn't use crank bros, used them for years, 2700 miles would be a gamble. I've found Time to be pretty bomber as well.

I was super happy with these.

http://www.rei.com/product/688268/rocky-gore-tex-oversocks-socks

Never properly tested them before but they were amazing. I wore summer weight wool socks for 99.9% of the ride, then in wet conditions I'd slip these on over top. Completely waterproof until you have water run in over the tops. I had pretty good luck in the flathead with my rain pants overlapping the gortex socks, which are fairly tall as well. The nice part is they breath quite well, I could leave them on comfortably until about 14 degrees C. Maybe my best piece of clothing. They are very thin, comfortable, no need to up size your shoes but they are only just stretchy enough to get on. You need to buy the exact size. Sizing seems to be quite precise, I wear size 9, that's what I bought, fit is just right with a pair of light socks underneath.

Interesting bivy discussion. BigPoppa is one of my gear geeking heroes, I'd echo his sentiments. My complete sleep system this year, a non waterproof 7oz Titanium Goat Ptarmigan bivy and a 20oz Western Mountaineering Summerlite mummy bag, no pad. I did spend 6 nights indoors but was brave enough to head out of Eureka at 6pm in the cold and rain with not much hope for shelter until Whitefish. I spent that night in the Tuchuck campground outhouse on the backside of the Whitefish divide, thanks Erik L. for the tip. I was always pretty confident that something to curl under could be found. Do you every notice the dry shadows under ponderosa pine trees in a rain storm? I did had to live with a bit more uncertainty than Ollie, with his z-packs sub pound tent.

Have you guys seen this? Gets you pumped for divide racing. Any takers, fakers, future world record breakers out there?

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Jay-Petervary-Tour-Divide-Record-Ride-video-2012.html

Great to hear from all of the new riders. You can feel the enthusiasm. There's some good momentum for the group ride out, so far four riders, myself not included, have shown interest.
Craig.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend any engineers out there. Just meant to highlight how detailed and specific Ollie is with his gear. Also that I appreciated that his gps and lights out-preformed mine, in terms of functionality, while they were in use.
I remember a few night time descents, "white knuckling it", far exceeding my lights, trying to stay close enough to Ollie to take advantage of his 900 lumens.

I can't speak for Mr. Whalley. I did raise an eyebrow when I realized he was running both a rechargeable gps and light-set while riding at a winning pace. Typical engineer, I say with the utmost affection, unwilling to sacrifice superior hardware at a cost of convenience. We, Ollie and I stayed indoors one third of our nights, giving him time to charge. He had to always be conscious of when he could charge up. Ingeniously finding plugs and charging his devices while we were eating or shopping. He ran with his gps turned off for long stretches as well. I like my disposable battery setup. I used only gps for navigation, it was on for 100% of the ride. The etrex is great on batteries. My lights also run on AA's. I had two lights, so to an extent they're redundant, I could always cannibalize batteries from one of my lights. My strategy was to maintain between 4-8 spare lithium AA's as a reserve. That way I never had to budget battery life. Lithium batteries are pretty light. Ollie always made it work but on a similar note, running out of charge with his lights on the separ road cost him a sub 16 time.

If anyone is interested in riding out from Calgary, pm me over the coming months. I can help out with any questions you might have on bike shops and last minute stuff in Calgary.

http://www.bowcycle.com/bc12/
http://www.calgarycycle.com/
http://www.mec.ca/AST/ContentPrimary/Services/Stores/Calgary/Rentals.jsp

I think riding to Banff makes a lot of sense. Living in Calgary that's how I get to the race. It's a nice warm up, shake down etc, about half a TD days ride, beautiful views, easy surfaces. Around 130 km/ 80 miles from NW Calgary, riding the 1A to Banff. It rakes about 5 hours at a steady pace on a road bike. 10 hours would give time for an easy pace on a loaded TD bike, and a stop in Canmore for a late lunch. I've offered to ride people out the past two years and would love to meet anyone who wants to do it this year. In 2011 I took Kevin Cunniffe and Martin Wimpenny. I'd like to head out on the Wednesday, have Wednesday evening and all of Thursday in Banff. We'd start with breakfast at our local cafe, bike path with some single track out to Cochrane, coffee at another usual cyclist pit stop, 1A to Canmore, lunch, goat creek trail to Banff.
Craig.

I have a bit of a divide addiction. I recently discovered a great source of divide information. Some of you probably already know of these but for rookies there's tonnes of great info. Written at touring pace but usually with more detail than race blogs. You can probably find a picture or description on every important piece of the route if you look long enough.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/search/?query=great+divide&main_type=all

All the advice is spot on. Great to see all the vets chiming in, notice that they all sound alike? I agree with the Long Ranger- "Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend."- Bruce Lee

I think Eszter might be onto something but how do you know you're a 24/25 day rider, maybe you're a 22.

When you're racing, if you are pushing and really racing, you'll find yourself always thinking 6, 12, 18 and even 24 hours ahead. It will shape the resupply points in your mind and let you know what you have to carry.

This past year, if you spent night two in Roosville, you'd be sitting in 3rd place.

I'm also amazed by the biggest day mileages down through the field. Ollie and my biggest day was only around 200, shortest was 140-150. Winning strategy is consistency and luck with conditions.

Triple crowns are great, although sometimes to big to take bikepacking! Nice bumping into you on the divide this year. Awesome accomplishments and you do inspire you fellow racers.

Awesome! I was hoping you'd chime in Ollie, being a super star single speeder in real life. I think I was a little one sided in my original response. I stated that a ss would be slower, slower for me is more accurate. TD is so long, there's more than one way to skin the cat. You can definitely make the same distance with a different strategy. All the times where you are spun out, you are also being forced to rest to a degree. The matches you save on the flats you probably have to use on the climbs. Most climbs aren't overly steep and I could see them being quite good on a ss. Then I'd guess you might be forced to ride longer hours, ala Jefe, to cover the same distance. I know Ollie and I preferred faster/ shorter hours over slower/ longer. You need to know the type of rider you are.
I would add that I was envious of Ollie's setup when we were hiking our bikes over snowy passes in Canada. Following him as we post-holed through the snow, numerous poky branches and small tree tops rubbing my derailleur. I couldn't help but notice how nice and clean and impervious to obstruction, the derailleur-less dropouts of his bike looked.

Not sure which event you're building this for. I can comment on TD and the scale. I raced a scale 29 RC this year for the tour divide. It's one of the most comfortable bikes I've ever rode. If you believe Scott's advertising, the scale has a small amount of vertical compliance. I believe I can feel it, anyway, I was very happy with the frame. I actually love the internal cable routing. I don't like full length housing, too much friction. If anything does get into your cables it can't get out very easily either. I've had the best luck with standard shimano cables. I've never had cables last as long as the do on my scale. With internal routing it's kind of like full length protection without housing, so much less housing to corrode and less friction. My cables were still in great shape after TD. To some degree I think too much is made over frame material. I agree that a custom ti frame is probably the holy grail for ultras. But I've rode scandium frames that ride better than some ti frames and some steel frames that are harsh. Enjoy your scale, I think it's one of the best, plus it's tough get frame in any other material that weighs 2.2 lbs.

Why do you need simpler mechanics? Standard geared bikes are pretty reliable. Of course plenty of talented single speeders have posted super competitive rides on the divide. Personally, I can't believe that a single speed can be as fast, just my opinion. How much fun is it to be hopelessly spun out on the parts of the ride that are tedious to begin with. My advice would be, if you are going for your first finish, give yourself every advantage, make it as easy as possible. TD is hard enough. If riding a single speed fits in making it easier for you, or makes you happy, go for it.
I ran a triple with a road cassette(closer ratios), just the opposite of a ss. I wanted to be sure I could always have the cadence my legs asked for on the flats.

Awesome Dave! I've never met you but I've cheered for you through my computer over the years. The best news I've heard all day. David Nice, Tour Divide finisher!

Craig Stappler