I'm still wondering about the role played by the "keep it moving" aspect in contrast to the "ride fast" side of things.

Maybe one can sleep a touch less than usual -- if bivvying, that might not be too hard -- life'll wake you up. Then just make sure the off-bike activities are streamlined. And that the on-bike action is where you can be comfy and relax if need be. Quick meals, quick shopping, quick maintenance, have a repair-free set-up if possible, efficient rest/stretch breaks if need be...

Possibly it's a major difference between touring and racing this route?

It's the tortoise and the hare thing.

I wonder if that relates to why a SS can do so well. Ride well, sure -- then don't fool around much the rest of the time. ...It's reducing off-bike time rather than increasing on-bike speed. ...Just wondering if that might be so.

I've personally had the experience on long rides and paddles that when I stop for any reason, even briefly, that others who don't stop suddenly put huge time/gaps on me that take a lot of rolling-time to make up for.

I've asked a few times but don't recall anyone elaborating on it yet. Maybe it's a silly question. But, as I've also mentioned, one of my enduro heroes Verlen Kruger, paddler, said the main key to big miles is "don't stop" -- situate so you can do it all while moving, make sure your setup is comfy for the long hours.

To me, if that's the case then it would seem to open up such events to the skills-sector in contrast to the pure power/speed side.

Feedback? Thanks!

Those guys are amazing!

Can Erik the Mud-Puppy catch Blaine the Cool-Smoothie?

If he does will there be a truce?

Patrick Tsai is in Colorado! Go Patrick! Does anyone know his Bio?

Yes, let's not forget our faithful Lanterne Rouge!

Others may put in more speed but he'll be putting in more hours by far!

"Kent's call-ins are always great and this one is quite moving.  We really are fortunate to have the opportunity to become connected to these racers lives while they take on this epic challenge."

Yes. We are let in on some big stories and dramas and comedy...and tragedy.

We're at risk for all of it by looking in on it.

The riders are at risk, sure. But we are, too.  

You follow something like this at a hazard. It's open-ended. We don't know what might happen. We might be changed. They likely will be. But there's no knowing.

It's creative, it's art. Time and chance are involved. Thus, story. Performance. It's the Beau Geste. We might doubt it because it's not "necessary" -- was it worth the cost? -- but actually art and performances are more necessary than necessities. We look to them for inspiration for life. I know that I'm inspired and that I'm thinking about things, in my own small neighborhood action, thanks to TD.

This is why people do, and follow, sport -- so it seems to me, now. It's different from when and why businesses produce "sport-like objects." In this post-modern era it takes EFFORT to be real.

Some stories are short, some go on for many chapters. We'll never know.

But this Self-Support idea is key.

When each task is handled by a separate professional, what happens to story? It dies! Life is a whole, it's not pieces. For sport to WORK for us, for it to do its job for us, it has to be able to tell the story and stand on its own, no matter what its length. Then we know there's an author behind it.

Oh, pro-sport has story, too -- but it takes so MUCH more work to grasp it -- and the aspect of FAKERY is nearly total. To some that doesn't matter. In some ways it reflects modern corporate life better (with all the special teams and complication of pro football, say). Story is everything in "rigged" sports -- no reason to begrudge the artifice? A Shakespearean play is all fake, too, right? I'm not sure. Pro wrestling has a story that can be gotten and appreciated. So what if it's show-biz, it still might have something to say.

Fresh simplicity and candor are sometimes darn good, though. And that's the Tour Divide. It's RIGHT THERE. No one's controlling anything!

I find that pro bike racers are often very much into cars and motorcycles.

Several champs have gone on to rally racing and more. (Lemond tried Formula, I recall, and Stephen Roche got into rallying. I think an ex-pro may have recently had a bad rally crash.)

Some of my old pro roadie pals never rode, and never now ride, a bike for casual fun or utility/errands/commute. Hard for me to imagine. They can relate more to NASCAR and other pro-sports, it seems, than to the idea of using the bike as a tool for liberation. ...But they do appreciate fuel economy, I'll add.

I like moto's, too -- they have their place -- I even consider them as part of my "adventure rig." But I can also see that "smaller is better." A wilderness setting begs for low impact.

I note that there's a cross-USA trail route that motorcycle clubs have mapped and set up -- but my impression is that moto's rather ruin a trail for any other use, making the soil loose and deep. (Snowmobiles do the same in winter.) Horses can also make a trail tough for other users. I think when ya see the options that the vote naturally goes to low impact.

Nothing is wrong with supported events... But...

They introduce an iron-clad barrier between social classes. That is, support is hugely expensive. Po' folk couldn't participate.

Self-support emphasizes holism over specialization -- another angle that, to me, widens the access to more social classes. I may well be wrong/off, but to me it seems that getting an elite, refined hone is more expensive than mastering a wide range of basic skills.

I suppose the whole thing is socially limited in a way, as Extreme Events are unwise for those without safety nets and thus rarely considered. Yet sometimes such people have a fine appreciation for the sacrifice and possibly could see the achievement as part of an important life path/stage. Usually one thinks of pro-sport as a way out of the ghetto or the sticks, and amateurism as the home of the privileged, but I'm not sure that's always the case. It's tricky stuff.

Anyway, I personally could never even fantasize about a supported effort, but I do indulge in my own small self-supported efforts and ponder bigger ones. And I typically can't afford any kind of entry fees nowadays.

To me self-supported touring of all kinds is democratic, and open to youth. While supported activity seems very much graying and affluent.

I'd love to see the hosteling/huts movement revive in the USA.

Then there's the whole FOOTPRINT issue that others mention. Low impact is where it's at. Ride to the trailhead, if ya can, man. (Makes me pine for more TRAINS.)

I'm wondering what helps overall average speed the most in a long nonstop enduro event...

I'm thinking that "keeping moving" might be the biggest factor. Like, in Matthew's recent video interview at the TD homepage he's in Salida, CO, and mentions that his last shower was in Montana. I'm guessing that slower riders are showering more often, for instance. Laugh if you like but it adds up, I bet!

If someone keeps all stops to a minimum -- gets food without fuss or dawdle -- cold food/coffee instead of stove on trail -- sleeps minimally and packs/unpacks with seamless flow (SEALs train to go from sleeping in tent to on trail again in, like, a minute) -- maintains bike in an efficient way (quick tube changes, or use a way that prevents flats) -- doesn't stop to take pics or to use the phone (? ...ride'n'chat) -- they'd certainly save hours a day. That adds up fast!

I've heard this from other enduro types and I've had century rides work out this way (a slow guy who kept rolling always beats my fast pal and I cause we stop for lunch and breaks). Verlen Kruger is a canoeist who promoted long nonstop paddling and his rule was "keep it moving."

It may complicate things, but like the Tandem class, there might be a pairs class, so that riders can choose the "buddy system" for this race. I don't think I will be inclined to be out there absolutely alone. It exceeds my risk tolerance. And, I expect the solos will still hold the course record. I think you can still obey all existing rules and still decide to stick together with someone or a group.

To me it looks like racers do this very often as it is. Maybe it could be a Class, too, though. Neat idea. Now, I'd think that plans/paces could change on a route like this, would they be obliged to stay together? As it is, it looks like riders sometimes change partners or groups.

I'm no rule expert but I also wonder about drafting. Maybe a Buddy Class could allow it? Offhand, I think I'd like the idea of riding with folks but wouldn't want to have to have a "keep away from me" mindset. In the headwinds across the basins, whew, taking turns only makes sense. I've done TT's but have never ridden among a sizeable group without drafting, so I don't know what being savvy about such a rule would be like. If it's wet, muddy or dusty maybe everyone tends to keep a bit of distance, who knows.

Buddies could also perhaps share equipment for lighter loads. ? I recall Jeff of Carousel saying that was a big part of his own interest in UL touring: the social aspect that came with sharing stuff to improve the experience of both.

Of course, buddying would have its own challenge! One could get tired of their twin...

I have a race question... I see posts referencing blue dots and red dots and watching blue dots moving in real time, I guess. But I use the Leaderboard on the TD homepage and only see the bootprints. Are there other viewing options? (That Topofusion update thing a week ago was great to see, with the time-lapse action.) Thanks.

I'm just holding my breath about Dave B. The waiting is hard.

I'm also hoping he finds an upside to the big change in plans. It can happen...

Hoping for best outcomes... 

     

This is one of the pictures Marshal sent last night.  The snow was on Fleecer Ridge and the rider I believe is Aidan.  There are a few other pictures on his blog.

Holy moley!

Speaking of ski days!

Dang, what hero bikers we have! TD even has the '88 Giro Gavia Pass thrown in! ...Probably times 10!

This is a geo-culturally educational race, right? Just like the TdF shows us things about France and Europe. I learned something from Matthew Lee's recent MTBcast. It was bad news, though. He said something like "Wow, Breckenridge is quite the tourist trap." It's hard to believe. Or, hard to accept.

I did drive thru last summer and it was quite shocking, but my family was whining and wouldn't let me stop and wander and ponder. I just assumed there's always a way to find the Inside of a place even when it's built-up, but maybe there's a limit. I hope they haven't gone over the edge, but it looked like they were poised to do so. It could end up as the Disney of the Rockies if they don't watch out.

I lived there in the mid-80's, in a cobalt blue mining shack on the edge of town. The free shuttle bus made a custom-request stop there to pick up / drop off my pals and I each day. The town was said to be quite built up even then. ...There was one stop light.

By then "they" already said the ski bum was dead. But we were ski bums! I hope they're still out there...

They also said hitch-hiking was crazy. But Stapleton to Breck was faster by thumb than by driving. (Driveaways were also a fun way to get across country and back to Michigan.)

The locals knew to use sidestreets and the alley on weekends---Main St. was silly to try to drive down, so we didn't.

I worked grooming the XC ski area, which at the time included a ranch 3 miles north/downhill of town and up against the mountains. That was a long, lonely grooming run out to that ranch...at 5am. In addition to pay, as a resort employee, I got a Summit Pass -- which let me ski free everywhere around, incl. Vail, I think.

Keystone was known as the touristy place and was avoided for work or skiing.

One friend lived in a teepee within the Breck ski area, another lived in a little shack/cabin within the area, another lived in a cabin within the XC area.

No one ever paid to ski even if they didn't have passes. They even advanced at the end to some kind of scanner at the base and we'd still get thru. Girls could do it blatantly. Hike to upper lifts was the fail-safe.

We didn't pay much for dwellings, either -- our neighbor rented out their closet and had, like, 7 in their apt. I rented the end of a hall my first winter. We had 7 at least in that miner's shack, including a band who lived in the foyer.

They say you can't go back again. Well, rats, it woulda been nice.

Do the dogs still run loose?

There was one place for groceries -- that's where you could catch up and visit with all yer local pals. Or at the post office.

I don't recall paying for lodging or skiing at Aspen or Winter Park (Mary Jane) either. I hope they're still Spacin' at the Basin. I enjoyed skiing laps up and down Boreas. --It was nice seeing the pics of Matthew Lee up there.

My day was: grooming 4-8am, nap til 9, XC 10-12, lunch, tele 2-4, free happy hour dinner for price of a beer... I got in 200+ ski days per annum.

I was with the Mackinac Island crew which rivaled the Brits, Ozzies, Kiwis as a sect and had its own Ullr Fest squad.

***

Durango and Salida seemed to be holding their own as real towns when I last visited.

Boulder seemed hanging in there in terms of managing the two sides of the sword, but steroidal construction was under way that looked likely to take it into hyperspace. (I paid, like, $200/mo for great places on either end of the Pearl St. Mall in the late 80's.)

Apologies for Old Fart rambling -- but I do like hearing about and seeing what the territory looks like that the TD rolls thru -- both natural and developed.

Brad Perry [...] lost 2 hours - ~30 minutes descending, and ~90 minutes backtracking up the hill.

Well, bravo for him!

"Mistakes were made." ...The glory is in fixing them!  : )  Huzzah!

About hub efficiency... Not to get off topic, but not long ago I rode hard for a few days on a new 3-speed ti Brompton folder (or maybe it was a 2x3). The losses in any gear but the direct-drive were depressing -- when going hard on pavement. I didn't notice it when just cruising. I suppose it was Sturmey-Archer? I'd been hoping to be impressed by hot new efficiency. It was dandy, just not for high-performance. The old ones were good for easy stuff. This new one seemed good for medium.

OK, the Trans-Can route is 13,000 miles long...

The Trans-Am motorcycle trail seems LIKELY a lot of deep moto-fluff -- is the biking good where lots of motos have passed? My hunch is no unless you use a Pugsley which makes "good" into a new thing.

So how about a Trans-Am route that's like 3,000 miles of dirt road and back roads of low traffic volume. 2-tracks, rail-trail, what have you. A route for low-impact touring. OK, maybe even a route for fast touring. Like rotating the TD onto E/W axis.

??

I clicked thru the threads and didn't notice anything but I'm no expert. The ACA has lots of E/W routes, right? But any backroads/dirt?

Does RAAM ever use chunks of ACA routes?

I'd think ACA already designs routes for low traffic. Do people use these for UL fast crossings?

Basically, to me "bikepacking" doesn't mean just trail or even just dirt. But am I going beyond the pale? Off topic, anyway?

Just pondering things...

PS: I see that the Bikeforums folks do include "Ultracycling" in a section. Now, they frame it in terms of events, but I see they've been trying to deal with distinguishing "long fast rides" from "touring." To me it's not always cut'n'dry. UL road touring might find a home in the cracks and seams there.

It might be worth noting that only 5-10% of TD is on trail. So that route is pretty much a road route -- albeit on dirt/gravel.

I wonder if a neat, low-traffic backroads, dirt, gravel route could be strung across the continent E/W. ? Maybe one already is...

Personally, I'm into the armchair action at present (kids, no $) and promoting the concept more widely among the doers. My own doing ends up close to home, which is fine. So I end up having a slight feel for things, but not as much as someone who's really into it.

It's interesting to me that even a Loner sort of rider would end up dealing with hundreds of people during the course of this ride. All the store, restaurant, motel and bike shop people. There must be lots of other folks one bumps into on the way.

So you'd be in restaurants having meals and folks would want to chat. Wouldn't they?

Or, do some riders get their meals to go?

Maybe ya get tired and don't feel like talking -- just chow the burrito and fly.

I have no idea! Never tried something like this.

...About the no-drafting rule. I kinda wish it was allowed or that maybe there was an Open Category or something. Do rando riders draft? I have my previously mentioned fantasy of cross-continent road self-supported fast tour. I'd probably prefer the buddy system in so doing. Might as well draft if'n'ya feel like it. But maybe if you really like drafting you should just use a tandem....  Whups, that's rule-talk and goes in the "other" thread! Or, maybe there should also be a TD Fantasy thread.

Here's a wonderment about the vibe of the race... It seems like there might be a good social aspect to it. It looks like a small posse is riding and bunking together. Seems like fun to me. At the same time, it also looks like there are a string of riders rolling along who are, like, a couple miles apart -- a few minutes -- for days on end. To each their own, right? Now, it seems to me that this race would appeal to folks who want to ride hard, all day. It also seems like in a race this long there'd be no real reason to, like, try to get a quarter mile further down the trail before setting up camp, or to eat breakfast a minute faster. Of course if you really DO want to be by yourself the whole time, then by all means -- in the end all those clumps of motion optimizing would add up. At the same time, if you're hangin' with some folks who all get along and who like to get a move on and and who eat similarly and like to ride, say, at least 100 miles of dirt a day, then why not have it be "the more the merrier"? In short, is this a bit like other Big Rando rides where folks group together by general pace/distance. They might get spread out but also often like to ride, eat, bunk together from time to time? Sure, maybe not all the time. It's an "on your own together" thing. I'd just think it would be super-darn fun to see and chat with Bill or Sally every few hours or every day or two out on the trail. You know what I mean, right? I wonder if they do ride it a bit like that. Just mullin' it over...lookin' at the boot-tracks. (PS: Hey, folks here keep mentioning "the blue dots." I only ever see orange boot-tracks on the SPOT Leaderboard. But on that TopoFusion week-long wrap-up time-lapse deely-o why there sure enough were blue dots. So is there more than one way to follow this race?) (PPS: I also agree with the idea to take any rules chat to another thread. It's simple that way. )

I'm having a bit of a time finding info on UL *road* bike touring.

I'm also thinking of touring as racing. Self-supported long distance road-bike racing. Like Chris K's proposed Trans Am. Or, if not a race, a fast crossing attempt, a record attempt (14 days since 1958).

The Backpackinglight forums people have an unused bike touring thread that suggests coming here.

The Bikeforums has a touring section but no ultra section.

?

I'd think that UL credit-card type touring with roadbikes on pavement and dirt would be way popular these days. ?

Thanks for the Oz Record tip! I hadn't heard of that. I've long been interested in self-supported fast action. I'm waiting for folks to dig into self-supported road racing and records, like the Trans Am (East-West axis). Chris K was organizing such an event a few years ago, but I recall that Lon H. talked him out of it. I emailed Lon myself about such a concept and he said it was too dangerous. I just can't see it. Though, of course, he really DOES know a ton. He suggested that people would ride too hard and get into trouble on their own -- then end up in a traffic accident. He says backroads dirt touring is a different matter. (As I recall, from our years-old chat.) I still disagree. Folks can ride far'n'fast within their limits -- I mean, they have to. There's no more likelihood of someone riding outside their skills there than anywhere else. Also, one can emphasize backroads as much as possible. The route doesn't have to all be paved, either. Basically, ultralight fast touring -- even credit-card style -- seems totally great/doable/reasonable to me. As folks explore it and dial it in the continent-crossing times would likely drop. I recall the record is 14 days set in 1958 by a Rich Berg, so the lore goes. C'mon, it's low hanging fruit. Right? But for all I know it's now a hot topic and there's a full forum about it somewhere. I'll go look!