A basic cateye would work well. I used a Cateye Strada wireless last year as a backup to my Garmin and didn't have any issues with it.

It's going to depend on your gear, but many people racing the route make due with an 11 - 13L bag on the front, a frame bag, and somewhere around 13 - 15L of capacity in a seat bag.

That way it's ready to charge if the hub breaks, or if you do need emergency power at night/whatever. I think with a 9 hour light battery, 15 hour GPS battery and 2 day phone batter (on airplane most most of the time) I should be allright? I dunno, this is why I will test

Sounds like you should be in good shape. I actually kept my phone completely off most of the time, but I had a separate camera with me, so I only used it for some panoramic shots and actual phone calls.

As someone who had a dynamo hub failure on this year's TD, I appreciated being able to charge a high volume cache battery in a restaurant or hotel at the same time I was topping off my GPS and/or phone. This allowed me to recharge my Garmin at night when/if I wasn't near any power source (such as camping in the Gila). I was able to keep my Garmin 800 running without issue sans dyno hub since I had the battery.

I'm doing an ITT with my son a couple of weeks after the race starts as he needs to finish his college term.

I've got a Garmin Touring plus which I'll be charging off a SP dynamo hub, I was wondering what mapping people use? I've tried searching the forum, but can't find the answer. There seems to be a bewildering array of maps on offer you can put on the device and I don't want to buy the wrong thing.

Cheers,

Jimbo

Assuming that you mean something like street level detail maps, your best choices are really the Garmin North American maps (not-free), or Open Street Maps (free). I've loaded the Open Streetmaps basemap on my Dakota 20 GPS and they work well. I have the Garmin maps on my 800.

Be brutal while packing: take ONE of everything for clothing, except two pairs of socks. By that I mean one pair riding shorts, one jersey (wool good)

I'd mostly echo this sentiment, other than suggesting two pairs of shorts, preferably from different manufacturers.

On my Fargo, I attached my PB superflash to the rack boss on the non-driveside seat stay, and zip tied it to the mount. I've had no issues with it for thousands of miles.

From last year's email from Matthew

"You can bring your own SPOT Messenger or DeLorme inReach tracker and pay TrackLeaders $45 to be added to their live map / Leaderboard, or you can get the same live map / leaderboard services by renting a SPOT Gen3 or SPOT Trace device direct fromTrackLeaders, priced at $100 for a Gen3 5min tracker, or $80 for a Trace."

Billy Rice rode S to N last year so he could be in Banff in time for the Grand Depart on June 12th. A late season snow storm dropped a lot of snow in Colorado and parts of Wyoming. IIRC, it was mostly the high sections that were impassable. There was a thread with photos in the race forum (possibly within the TD15 race thread, I can't remember). As you said, a lot will depend on how much snow the route receives over winter. FWIW, we had no snow on the route by the time we rode south on June 12th last year, despite the late season storm.

I've been wanting something like this since I put my Jones bars on!  I browsed around for hours trying to find some bar ends that had two bolts, to allow you to mount them to the loop portion.  Do it Jones!  I want one/two!
Rob English made some similar extensions for that Black Rainbow Divide bike that he built a while back.
http://www.englishcycles.com/custombikes/black-rainbow-divide-ride/

A friend and I emailed Rob about his extensions a year or two ago. He was willing to make them, but since they were a custom build, they weren't cheap. I really do like how his setup for the Jones bars worked tho.

Thanks.  If I may ask, I'm thinking of bringing a lightweight pair of insulated, waterproof hiking boots to wear if it looks like there's going to be a lot of hike a bike in mud, snow, etc.   I generally ride clipped in but am thinking of double-side pedals in case I need to switch to flats occasionally.

We had good weather this year, so it's hard for me to give solid advice. No snow on the course and very little mud. On the days that we did have wet, cold or a creek crossing, I used a pair of knee high waterproof wading socks and waterproof gloves to keep my extremities warm. I used them more to keep warm than I did to keep water out. The ones I bought used Dexshield as the waterproof barrier, and they worked well (for me).

I'm concerned about the altitude of the race as I live in Louisiana and I'm at about 150 feet above sea level.

I'm from central Iowa (900 ft above sea level), and I had no noticeable issues with the altitude. By the time I hit the really high stuff in CO, there had been plenty of time to get used to the air, and my legs were so tired that it was impossible to put any stress on my cardiovascular system anyway.

From a distance standpoint, in the 18 months before the race, I had maybe 3 miles of 1000 miles or more. My monthly mileages were in the 650 - 800 mile range. I concentrated more on hours in the saddle vs monthly mileage.

I grew up in Columbia Falls, MT.  So, I still have parents and family in that area. South to North also makes it seem like it would make logistics easier for me.  I'd miss being part of the big start and riding with different peeps along the way.  On the other hand, you would get to see everyone as they come south and meet you.

You'll see at least some of them, but many will only be a quick blur and wave. My experiences from this past year indicate that many people were good for 1 - 3 minutes of chatting and then wanted to get moving on.

Griz - You are welcome to borrow my pad and quilt (25F) anytime you want to test them. I had my doubts about quilts at first, but for a given weight, you're actually making better use of the insulation that you're carrying. You will want to use a solid pad with the quilt vs the klymit you have now.

At this year's race, I saw every frame material, tire size, and drivetrain option available, including electronic shifting. Biggest take aways are to get plenty of miles on your rig before the big dance and be comfortable with repair or piecing things together in case of an incident. What works one year won't always work the next. Heading southbound on the Grand Depart, I only had two days of what I would call rainy weather (this was for a just barely sub 25 day finish), so a derailleur based 2x10 driveline worked perfectly fine for me and my riding style. People that came through the Gila just a few days after me suffered through some soul sucking rain and mud. I ran a rigid titanium frame with a titanium seatpost and carbon fork and had very few points where I felt that suspension would have been a "nice to have" and none where it was a "must have. YMMV.

I've personally had good luck with various Profile bars. I would try and visit an LBS that has some of the models in stock so you can get a better idea of what position your wrists will be in when using the various models. Some of the Profile bars angled my wrists too far forward for me to be comfortable. I went with a bar with a touch more "rise" at the end so my wrists were in more of a neutral position. I personally wouldn't both with the extra expense of carbon aero bars, aluminum ones work just fine.

Depending on whether or not you have the room in your spacer stack, a Fred Bar might work for mounting the aero bars. Profile also makes spacers so that the bars sit higher and you're not as hunched over while using them. I used 10 or 15 mm of extra spacers for the set on my Fargo just to make them a touch more comfortable over multiple days when speed isn't at a premium.

Does anyone have some good tips for making the indoor trainer interesting? I'm using a Wahoo KICKR which apparently works with all sorts of software.

I used the workouts that my coach gave me on a bi-weekly basis, so I didn't have many issues with variety. You might look at some of the stuff from Lynda Wallenfels or from trainerroad.com. Both will keep you from just sitting there and spinning mindlessly for two hours.

I was fortunate that I also own a tacx trainer that had video courses to use for longer indoor rides that weren't intervals. It would change the restistance of the trainer automatically based either on their course, or on a GPX track.

I heard that there was a nasty CX accident on Day 1 this year due wheel failure. I could be wrong but there was definitely EMS services, looking for someone,  filtering through the pack prior to Elkford.

Not sure what bike he was riding, but there was a guy that ended up with a head injury and a concussion on day 1. Ambulance and EMS navigating the mud north of Elkford in mid-afternoon and then headed back towards town well over an hour later.

Having done both types of touring, I would say that I tended to bring more bulky single purpose items and items of comfort while road touring. Tennis shoes, more off-bike clothing, big camp towel, etc. I tend to pack a lot lighter/smaller now just because I have the experience of really paring my equipment down and few years of investment in lighter, more compact gear. As far as bikes go, my Fargo is about as "expedition grade" as my bike will need to get for quite a while.

How long of a pre-Divide taper period are people planning?  One week/ Two weeks?

Mine was about 3.5 weeks from the start of the taper to the first day of the race. It was more of a tapering of hours spent on the bike vs a tapering of intensity. I was still doing some 60-90 rides w intervals during the taper. My long rides were fairly easy (road bike in power zone 2) for no more than 2 hours.