What you need out on the trail is completely different than what you need to commute with, for sure.  Commuting I like a lot of light, for the trail less.  I did CTR with a max brightness of ~200 lumens on my bars and an additional ~300 on my head if needed.  The only time I used both on High was going 30-35MPH down some dirt roads of the Tarryall detour.  I usually set the helmet  around 30 lumens and the bars around 70 lumens for the majority of my riding, and didn't feel like I was slowing down because of my light levels.  I run off 3 AA batteries on the bar light and 2 AA on the helmet, so maximizing run time was always a priority.

I did find that after I put it at full brightness, it took a few minutes of running at the lower levels to get adjusted to it again.  I would spend the first 3-5 minutes wishing I had more light, then would be fine after that.

For flat fire roads I personally wouldn't feel the need to go above 100 lumens.

Make sure you vet out your screen brightness, I know I always wish my Garmin had another brightness level between the low and off.

The other thing to consider is if you are riding with somebody.  If they are running extremely bright lights then your eyes will be adapted to that light level and your lights will be inadequate.

I used a Two Fish pump holder this year that worked out pretty good

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Wait, didn't Mark bail on the front side double for the ctr?  I think he said he was going to do it on the back side

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Anyone heading back to Durango from Denver area have room for me and my bike? Thanks
Jens
805.458.7757

Wish I could help Jens, good luck.  Congrats on the finish and thanks for the campfire at Carson Saddle, big morale booster for me.
Nick

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My Penalty for taking longer with the 14ers: getting hammered with bad weather. 2 hail storms and yesterday 6 hours of solid rain, deep mud slog. Thunder at slumgullion and rain starting again made me do a right turn to drop down to lake city - Carson doesn't sound the right place in those conditions. Nice lunch and beer makes up for the climb back up tomorrow and hopefully the weather settles down. Now that week 2 has started, I'm clearly on touring pace.

Roland, I love your mettle!  Keep on moving, you won't regret it.

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I'm back home now and getting ready to wash up and take a nap, both are needed badly.

Yesterday morning, I decided I would push straight from Copper to the finish.  It worked out great for me as I felt good for the entire Tarryall detour and could really hammer.  Tarryall Pat had his reservations on whether I could make it through before sunrise, but didn't dismiss it completely, and I arrived back at the CT at 4:40 a.m., 6h 40m after leaving the Stagestop.

Apparently Brad and Kurt didn't care for me passing them in the night, and they caught up with me as I was eating, purifying water and generally taking a siesta at the South Platte.  They promptly attacked up the climb.  I scrambled and packed up my stuff and gave chase.  I eventually made my way ahead of them, but then I was running scared the entire segment.  So, I never figured I would be at the end of a 560+ mile race (and about 145 miles into my current stretch) and find myself in an XC race/TT, but we were in a "race", so all's fair, you want it, fight for it.  It definitely made the end a bit more interesting, hats off to Brad and Kurt, you guys were flying up the climb.

I'm really happy with my 6d 7h 50m finishing time considering my stomach wasn't cooperating and I took 2 full days to reach Carson Saddle (10-ish day pace?).  Thanks to Jens and Mike for getting me out of that funk at Carson Saddle by simply inviting me to join you for a campfire, such a moral booster.  It was fun moving up through the field though, you constantly get to talk to new people.

-Nick

Here's a few shots from my week:

Quick Spot Gen 3 Tutorial for anyone that needs it.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBUzrKYsRG8

When I went south/westbound I thought Sargents Mesa was no big deal.  Tenmille was the worst part for me.

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Mark should be having a pretty nice day out there right now, but segment 2 is probably going to be pretty hot.

Have I mentioned how much I'm starting hate segment 2?  I despise it almost as much as Tenmile.  Hot and gravel filled ruts, pretty much bad riding but without the views that Tenmile affords.

I'm doing a homemade LED light for my bar light.  I'm running a single LED that is really powerful, but I'm not driving it anywhere near it's potential giving me great battery run times and still plenty of adequate light.  Going DIY also made it so I could choose my own power supply, I'm using 3 x AA batteries to power it.

For my helmet I have a bike EOS unit, but I feel like I should upgrade that to something a little brighter and runs on AA instead of AAA for better run times.

The Tarryall is actually a pretty sweet detour, eh?  I liked it, anyway.  Much better than the old 285 detour IMO.

Yeah, I could see how it wouldn't be the most pleasant mid-day though.  Reversing the direction would also make it a bit more of a grunt.

CT was busy this weekend.

I was dropped off at Kenosha Pass at sunset on Thursday and rode home from there, made it back in time for dinner on Friday.

With the Jupiter and Venus coupling and full moon rising and distant lightning storms it was a beautiful night to be out on the Tarryall detour.  Dare I say I actually enjoyed the detour?  Though, the Hayman burn area was not that great.



A massive amount of backpackers on the trail and I actually saw 3 or 4 other bikepackers too.  Good times, even if it was a little hot out there.

How many pairs of cycling shorts do people bring? I have only gone on 3 day rides and am wondering how well one pair will hold up after 8 days. Is washing shorts in a stream advisable? I would worry about small amounts of silt.

I've seen guys in the past bring 2 pair and have one airing out while wearing the other.

I've had great success with bringing something else (boxers or long johns depending on weather) to sleep in and only bringing one chamois.

Both Gen 3 and Trace have LEDs for power and GPS. Both units will have the power LED flash red on low battery. The trace has a feature that lets it send a message for low battery because its primary use is to prevent theft (put on a boat or object that doesn't move for months. Once moved the trace starts tracking.) Both units work same for tracking just the Gen 3 has the SOS button.

Stefan - tracking page showing a 5am start time under the map. May want to change that to 4am.

Ah, good to know, thanks.

Share a little more on what your planned trip is, that will help with any recommendations.

Solar charging will likely be difficult as most e-bikes run between 24 and 72 volts so they require some pretty high charging voltages.

Maybe you can work something out where you run a dynamo charging hub on your bike (or trailer, or both!) and you can charge a battery with your pedaling, while the kids are consuming another battery. 

SPOT Rental / Sign-up form is live!  http://trackleaders.com/ctr-signup I will plan to hand out rental SPOTs in Durango the morning of or the evening before.

No course changes for 2015 as far as I know!

Thanks Stefan, I'm all signed up for my rental.

There's the option for the Spot Gen 3 or the Spot Trace.  Same battery life and reporting intervals.  The only differences I can figure is the Gen 3 has the 911 and Ok buttons.  Does the Gen 3 also have some way to indicate low battery?  That would be a nice thing to have, the Trace doesn't have any buttons or indicator lights.

Hey everyone, I'm throwing my hat in the ring again this year.  Planned on it last year, but was injured doing a stupid cross-fit workout about 1.5 months out.

I have the day off work on Friday so I'm planning to take advantage of it.  Dropped off a Kenosha on Thursday night and ride home (Littleton)from there.  I've never seen the Tarryall detour, so I want to check it out.

I'm scrambling to get re-acquainted with my GPS, LOL.  Reminder for anyone else looking for it, the GPS track Toby made for the 2014 race is here:
http://tobygadd.blogspot.com/2012/01/colorado-trail-race-gpsgpx-tracks-and.html

No course changes for 2015 right?

Hostess fruit/pudding pies always packed a good punch.  400-450 calories each and can be eaten in 30 seconds.

Before I found out I was celiac they were a constant staple in races for me.



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Oops, wrong thread.
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Christina N. stayed in that yurt during a nasty stretch of weather last year - she was a couple days ahead of me on her ITT. I do remember her saying something about a sheep herder staying there? She could fill in with better info than me. Here's her final call in from last year.

http://mtbcast.com/site2/2013/08/10/mtbcast-ctr13-itt-christina-nacos-called-in-with-her-finish-call/

I would guess the CTF facebook page would be a good place to ask about the Yurt too.

Actually, she stopped in a small sheep herder trailer at first and then continued on a little ways to get to the yurt.

The yurt isn't visible in the southbound direction unless you look back in the northbound direction.

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