Don't worry about the snow.  Trail will be good.  A few snowfields to cross way up high - maybe.

The altitude, lightning, hypothermia, traffic on 285 - those will kill you.

Todd, I am starting on the 8th.  Can't make the 1st work.

What's the road like from Sedalia to the start?  At night.  On a bike.  Probably after a few beers.

I have a dietary restriction that forces me to eat at K's Dairy.

Do you think City Market closes at midnight or more like 10?

I just assume everything will close 5 minutes before I get there.  It makes planning a lot easier.

I don't know this Ethan guy, but if he catches up to JB or KR, I will be thoroughly impressed.

I'd probably not rule Ethan out.

2 CTR wins and this little gem:

1 6:45:45 Dave Wiens
2 6:47:41 Lance Armstrong
3 7:20:52 Manuel Prado
4 7:27:54 Ethan Passant

WOW, that was really nice of the "alternate route decision making fairies" to think this through for everyone....

Now if they could just ride for everyone no one would have to do anything...

No fiberglass.  I copied this stove:

http://www.bikepacking.net/individual_setups/penny-stove/

I made one of these.  It works great and wieghs nothing.  You can get that yellow Heet at almost any gas station.  I used Heineken cans cause I drink the hell out of beer.

I think I said this before;

The GPS track is PRICELESS on the detours.

I rarely looked at it on the trail, 'cause there was usually a CTR triangle within site.

But you could screw up bad on the detours w/o a GPS, and not completing the whole deal because you rode a paved road instead of a dirt road or missed a turn in a town would suck.

Can anyone post up a list of the major food stops?  Anything from good gas station food to a grocery store would work.  

I'd suggest the guidebook.  But,

Bailey Diner, Breck 7-11 (3 miles off course), Quiznos at Copper, City Market at Leadville (plus several good restaurants), City Market at BV, K's Dairy at BV FOR SURE, Mt. Princeton hot springs store,...Apples' big tuperware stash, ...Silverton, Durango.

Good luck being as fast as Owie.

Damn, Plague???

I was hoping to avoid flats and rattlesnakes and scorpions.  Plague...

Yo Kurt - did you die?

I figured we'd at least get an elapsed time.

Tim

I'll be leaving here (Fort Collins) on Sunday.  I have the current CLR GPX file on the GPS.  When will you have it updated?

The weather looks a lot better so we are planning on starting Monday afternoon-ish.

Someone needs to make beer that weighs less.

They do.  It's called scotch.

You could use snotel site history for precip ( I think it's record hourly) and plot it on the map.  We probably passed close to a few snotel sites.

Whats that saying -  anything is possible when you don't know what you're talking about?

See the brake cable that goes above the bag?  All my cables do that.  That way I can put a huge stuff sack on there if needed and the cables don't need to go around it.  I think I left them a little long so that they would have some routing slack.

If that forecast doesn't change by about 20 degrees we'll be going elsewhere.  A guy from Fairbanks is coming down to do it and that will kill him.

Thanks for the info.

I am riding the 250 route starting October 11.  I'm in Northern Colorado where we don't have much cactii so I just run Performance light tubes here with no problems.

Should I get ready for cactus needles?  I could sure load up some tubes with Stans or Slime if it would be worthwhile.

And I don't need to hear about the benefits of tubeless (Kurt)!

Thanks

Tim