I wouldn't say stuff like that.  Kindergarten teachers are MEAN.

Yeah but I'm tough too, I teach middle school!

congrats to chris and the rest of the fellas. if you've ever seen Chris's quads in person you might think 32x20 was under geared.

Amen to that.  All I ever saw on his blog was pictures of his ugly face.  Then when I stayed with him before the CTR and went on a ride with him it was like riding with a different person.  Same skinny face, but with massive tree trunk quads. 

Dude is STRONG!

Water question.  Did you even bring a filter?  It seems like there are spigots at camp grounds and in towns.  What is the minimum recommendation for water capacity?

Man this has been such a great race!  There are a few of us that are stoked to try an attempt in the fall.  I don't know what was more exciting, watching the SPOT or Paris-Roubaix yesterday.  What a great weekend!

To those others who are still out there, keep it up!  We're cheering you on just as hard!

This is probably the best race I've kept up with in the past few years.  Great job Chad and Scott for getting it together.  I don't envy them right now!

And the plot thickens!

So not everybody has a SPOT then huh?  Nothing like the first Ultra of the year to stoke the riding fire.

Any start pics?

Ok, thanks!

Let me ask a simple question.  What map would I need to buy?  I'm not much of a GPS person but I would still carry it.  I'd like to have a map as a back-up.

You'd be more than welcome to join me if you wanted.  It'll probably be me and 2 other strong riders making it out there next year.  Maybe just me though.

AWESOME!  I thought I was gonna have to sleep like the dogs.  In France last summer I had to sleep on the ground 1 night out of 3 weeks of bike touring.  At one point I tried to strap the hammock up between 2 picnic tables but they just wouldn't hold. 

Good to see you use the creativity that sometimes it takes to hang!

If you don't mind I'll probably be picking your brain and others more as the time goes by.  I'm pretty sure I can make it out there for Thanksgiving next year.  My biggest concern is the logistics from airport to trailhead back to airport.

So did you actually get to use your hammock?  I didn't think there would be any place to hang? 

Ok.  Thanks for the info.  I REALLY want to make it out to that trail next year.  I'm not sure if I have more than 4 days to give to it though.  May just plan on 4 days and see where that get's me.

I'm trying to plan ahead for the fall of 09.  I teach so I'm very limited on when I can actually travel.  Is Mid November going to be to cold to do a trip on the AZT 300?  I'm thinking the week of Thanksgiving.  Otherwise it won't be until March of 2010.  I'm thinking a 4 day trip for the whole 300.

Is that the new Lynsky ti bike?  Any idea what gearing he is running?  Man, what a slim set-up he's got on there.  I'd be interested to hear what he is carrying.  It's interesting to see the different set-ups people carry based on experience and terrain. 

Thanks for the updates.  Positive vibes to Chad and good luck to all the 300 racers coming up!  I'm going to try my darndest to make it out to the trail next year. 

Only if you had trees to hang from, you would be sleeping a lot more!

hey, can ya'll point some of us sideliners to some past race reports to catch up on the experience of the AZT? 

Make sure to give the link so we can all follow!

Oh, and we started at the Hwy 27 Fishing Village and jumped on the Womble.

We sort of had a map.  We used the Womble map as well as the Ouachita Race map to help with navigation.  We got off the map for a while to check out other trails that we came across and ended up getting a bit lost.  It wasn't that big of a deal since Arkansas isn't exactly Colorado or Alaska and we had plenty of food and shelter to get us through a couple days if we needed to.

I'm not sure on the mileage since none of us brought computers.  I can say that you can easily do the Womble in one full day (loaded down with gear) and then the Ouachita is much slower and much more difficult.  It's amazing how different the 2 trails were.  There is a LOT more climbing on the Ouachita. 

All in all I loved the trip.  I wish there was more like it near Austin.

Some friends and I took another trip up to Arkansas this weekend to explore some more trail.  We ended up getting everything we wanted and a little more.  Here is a link to the video shot from my camera.  It was a total of 3 nights and 4 days.
http://web.mac.com/travis_katie/iWeb/Site/Blog/AB485FDF-21A7-4279-BFE4-21984970FA58.html

here is a link to the pics...
http://web.mac.com/travis_katie/iWeb/Site/Bikepacking%202009.html

Hammock.  No pressure points.  You'll never catch me on the ground again.