hmmmm that could spark another CTR-like trail closure thread. Hopefully we won't have to cross that bridge and it will be clean

The rules of the CTR and TD are different in this respect - the CTR has the, "Don't break the law" rule, TD does not!

[q

It looks as though Craig's spot is not working because it shows that he has not moved for over 16 hours. This is not correct as he was at the post office at 11:30. Does anyone know how to tell him that it is not working?

Jay's prev. TD strategy has been to go fast and get tons of rest so he may be doing that again. A little different from the, "go slowish w/little sleep" strategy others may use. It's nothing but impressive that he can go so fast and do it again the next day.

I'll also add that I use his saddle bag on my daily commuter to fit my tools and pump and a raincoat. Any ride over 50 miles, I bring it along, no matter the bike. The weather changes on a dime here in Colorado and it's nice to have all the gear I need ready to go - no more back jersey pockets stuffed with Stuff. I honestly cannot imagine not having such a bag with me on long rides. A great piece of kit.

Def. check out these bags. Greg (12wheels) worked incredibly closely with me when he created the saddle bag, frame bag and top tube bags for my Tour Divide rig - four bags in all!

I initially gave him a visit because of a post on bikepacking.net about his saddle bags, the same ones shown above. I really wanted someone to source someone local to make my Tour Divide kit bags and man, did I luck out in meeting Greg. Well worth the rides to Boulder via Denver (helps to find a good offroad training route!).

He first showed me the saddle bags he had recently made and I was pretty blown away by the attention to detail and construction. They looked like they could certainly do the job. I'm very very tough on gear, so I'm extremely reluctant to try things that I'm not totally and completely sold on - it'll just end up on the junk heap. I bought one of the saddle bags on the spot, extremely excited to try it out. Greg wanted to assure me that if anything was found needing additional attention, that he wanted to know what he could do to make his gear better for exactly what I planned to use it for -  that he wanted me to be 100% satisfied. That was really cool of him.

Greg told me he also has made frame bags, once I told him I was having trouble sourcing that local as well. The Other Guy was a nightmare of never-ending back and forth emailing that never got anywhere and wasting my time as the start crept up closer.  

But with Greg, within 5 minutes, we were both sitting on the floor, taking measurements of my frame and discussing what types of design problems I wanted to solve - my frame - a Kona Big Kahuna 18", does NOT have have a lot of space inside the front triangle and I wanted to exploit as much available room as possible, without it getting in the way of the myriad of design problems that present themselves: crank, feet, knee and chain ring clearance, durability, the cables the are routed on the bottom of the top tube just to name  some initial hurtles. And SIMPLE! I wanted something very simple. A frame bag looks like an easy project: a triangle-shaped bag, but there's a lot of little "gotchas!".

With the frame bag and saddle bag down, we marched towards the next problems - the top tube bags! I gave Greg some mock ups I had designed in my studio just out of cardboard and described how I envisioned them working: Ultra minimal, ultralight, unfussy. Greg took almost no time to turn around my prototypes into working, usable bags. I was 100% satisfied with his work, he made some amazingly useful, ultra lightweight gear.

I (still!) owe Greg a round or two (or three!) of beers for his help in my Tour Divide and going the distance in his workmanship.  He's the first person I'd call up if (or when) I ever need custom bags made again. Super fun and easy to work with, extremely communicative and attentive to my ideas - and filled with a ton of great ideas of his own that I would never had thought of:

Some of the nice details on my frame bag were a HUGE bulletproof zipper for the single compartment, a small, inside pocket specifically for a passport and an easy-to-access outside pocket, exactly sized to put a map in. That outside pocket turned out to be most handy also for my, "wallet" and a tri-tool - no munging around the other very tightly packed bags. Never lost a thing, either.

If I could describe my Tour Divide in one word, it would be TOUGH! Tough on my gear, tough on my bike, tough on my body. Greg's gear pulled through! Really proud to be using his gear. After my ride, Greg wanted to continue to get feedback on how his bags could be even better. Incredible.

Go Jay!

Is that Lizard Head?

http://www.summitpost.org/lizard-head/152036

I like that magic backpack he has that can hold all that stuff!

Chapeau Jefe! that was a good run.

I'm currently thinking of doing the CTR, but I  have no idea where my bike is! I'd hate for it to get shipped here on Friday and even think my LBS has time to get it fixed up by Sunday - the wrenches are going through 80 jobs/day! But, ITT'ing sounds like loads and loads of fun in late August. Even the mention of doing the route as a mixture of a cycling/hiking challenge (doing the route without detour) makes my appetite wet - if I could find an appropriate bike to pull it off.

Perhaps I'll see everyone on the starting line, merely as a spectator! Go go CTR'ers!

Yeah, but YOU will have to do it in January, Justin--otherwise it'll be too easy.

Already sourcing one of those Montague/Hummer bikes!

Actually, I'd love to see myself at the start of the CTR. If I can recover in time and my bike's back in one piece... The Durango start sounds nice, as I can finish, take a nap, and ride a leisurely ride home. Just have to find the ride up there!

Not that I'm aware of.  Doesn't really make sense unless you are keen on carrying your bike through every Wilderness area

Don't even give me ideas!

To give you an idea, in 29 days, I went through 3 tires, 3 chains, 4 brake pads, broke a pedal and had my shifter cables changed out once (and don't forget cost of work itself). Before I can ride the bike again, I have to get a wheel replaced, get new pedals and replace the drivetrain. Probably another new tire. Cost of the bike was around 3g's once everything is said and done. Little things add up. Preemptive bike selection could help out with these costs. If you have hella fancy components known less for their durability than their lightness, they're simply going to need to be replaced more often. If the fancy components are also lighter and you like that, just have knowledge that they may wear out and that's the penalty you've given yourself. I can't think of anyone who had problems with frames breaking except Aidan's and there were a ton of very fancy full carbon rigs in Banff, so those may have proved their worth. Aidan's bike was repairable on the route, lucky he was near a titanium frame shop!

The bike suffers, especially if you go through bad weather, where you'd otherwise just stay home and hang out. Constant dust, rain, mud and not as many opportunities as you'd like to give you bike a nice wash/lube just multiplies these problems. You can clean all the mud you want off the thing, lube it up all nice and then in 10 minutes have it covered up again in mud and grit. There's nothing you can do, unless you never ride in wet conditions.

Costs can be lowered by not eating out as much and instead just buying food at grocery stores and not moteling it. Sometimes there's limited choices on those, as well. Many places, the only resupply is a lodge. Going to a lodge, like the Skyline lodge was, to be honest, a total treat - the food is super good, the proprietors are totally into the race, it's a nice rest before another long section - might as well enjoy those times when you can!

 On some stretches, I made $80 of food go for 3 days from the grocery story - sometimes much, much less if all I had was basically peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (by necessity - I could feel myself go into starvation mode), but dropping $30 for a super meal of 2 burger meals and a big plate of ice cream was totally not out of the question. Some of the towns you go through live on Tourism, so prices can be ridiculous unless you're eating out of the gas station (cough Banff...). Motels are going to be the biggest money sucker, unless you start sharing the room with multiples of people. Some find (I do!) bivvying it most of the time keeps you in the mode of just going forever. Getting dirty only needs to be done once and then you're dirty - it's hard to get dirtier.

The flight into Banff was ~$200 from Denver (bike flew for free via Frontier Airlines!), the Shuttle to Banff from Calgary was around... $60? The shuttle out of Silver City was ~$55 to Las Cruces and the ghetto bus back to Denver was another $55.

Chapeau, Denis!

Justin Simoni here. Quickly - I will elaborate on this in the future when I have the time to:

* ALL your support through my Tour Divide was absolutely incredible. You made it happen, I merely pushed the pedals. I will send a more thoughtful and eloquent "thank you" via email to all those that helped out with the fundraiser for my TD and for U.S.E.D. I'm sure they're absolutely freaking out with the money raised. I do have some balances out on the route and I haven't forgotten. You know who you are. Again, thanks for your trust and belief in me.

* I feel greatly indebted to ALL your kindness, generosity and how you've all inspired ME. Let me heal up this shoulder, sort through my work (I'm self-employed) and let's talk about some projects in this community that can benefit others that I can lend a hand in. I hear art/design/posters/t-shirts. That's right up my alley, would love to help out in any way possible for other fundraising goals, Dave B.'s daughter's scholarship fund or otherwise. I'll continue to say this, but the matching fundraising efforts for the book was a complete surprise and extremely touching. I'm glad that I could inspire that sort of response - I can't quite put it into the best words yet, but see my last call-in for an initial try. And why, yes, I am single

* Re: medical bill hardships: I DO NOT have a bill, yet. I DO have health insurance - really awful health insurance, but it has a realistic ER copay. The X-ray won't be covered, so you can kind of guess what it'll be. No ambulance ride, no helicopter ride, the fish and game police officer was totally rad and drove me to the ER and dropped me bike off at Bike and Hike - so how cool is that? Props to the area's fish+game police and park rangers. Again, kindness everywhere you go on the Tour Divide. So, it's not life-crushing, it'll be an annoyance. I can still type, which means, I can still work. It'll take a few weeks to be able to screen print and probably do more hands-on art/design. I also play cymbals in a marching band (well, of course I do!) so that'll have to wait a little while as well!

* Kent P. is going to email interview me in a few - he's asking questions from the community to ask me - you can give him the questions via twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/kentsbike/status/90441015030325248

I'll be writing essays and releasing some of the photos I took on the Tour Divide, it may come out as some sort of small electronic chap book-sized thing or something. I don't really know, but I'm playing with the idea of writing, editing and doing a bang-up job (zing!) of it all.

Here's a few hastily edited low-res photos of some of the standard route that were rerouted, to show y'all what you missed. Feel free to repost these to your own *personal* blogs, but please ask before using them for anything commercial. Grab the whole Flickr code, if you can.

The Canadian Flathead Section was devastatingly beautiful:


Mountain in the Canadian Flathead

Whitefish Divide, looking up,


Whitefish Divide, Montana

Red Meadow Lake


Red Meadow Lake, Montana

Richmond Peak,


Richmond Peak, Montana

Union Pass, Wyoming


Union Pass, Wyoming

It's tough to say, but the route he's on is dirt from El Vado lake down to at least Regina, maybe La Jara.  The official reroute is all pavement.  He's probably allergic to asphalt.

The reroute I got actually turns to dirt for 16 miles, starting at the res. HW 112 ends, dirt begins (forget the name of the road), dirt ends and then HW begins again. Scratched my head for a little while trying to figure out what's up, until I talked to a local. If it's wrong, it's the best I could do. Checking Google Maps, *they* have it wrong, as does the ACA map, which has the HW/Resovoir relationship totally off. Regardless, it worked

You guys are incredible!

Yes, you... the Bikepacking community: 114 Cordillera Volume 2 books have been sold since the matching donation was announced. 69 on June 25th alone. That's a record for us.

Over $2,440 has been raised for the college fund since the match was announced. We're well over $4,000 total, more than I'd ever hoped to raise.

Can someone get in touch with Justin Simoni? He needs to know his role in this as well.

Eric

I'm really exceptionally touched that I can inspire! Remember, it's all you gals/guys that make the community what it is. I just push the pedals. This is amazing news. Thanks for continuing to inspire me to keep pushing those pedals.

Hello from Jackson Lodge!   Indeed made it over the pass between Cricket Elk Ranch (?) and the Flagg Lodge, 9-10 miles of easy trudging, no 'shoes required. Looking forward to the next 2 passes, albeit a lot higher and most likely, a whole lot longer.   Was tipped off that two adventurous cyclists made it over yesterday! Not sure if they were Tour Dividers, but one looked as if they were running Nanos. "Chapeau"! to whomever it was, first snowy pass where I actually was the one following the path of another. Perhaps I inspired someone to try some of the standard route?

Speaking of inspiration, I've been inspired by the entire collective network community of the Tour Divide, everyone from the super fans, to the super hot-shot mechanics, to the owners and workers of all the colorful and unique restaurant, lodges, holes-in-the-wall mercantiles and those who become amazed at the 30 second full-on description of the race and what makes it truly wonderful and special. It's wonderful to briefly pass through these people's lives as a stinking guy in nasty cycling bibs in a huge hurry and food falling out of my mouth.  

Anyways, I'm off the boards so I can focus on screaming to A.W. in my extremely slimmed-down self.  Thanks for all your support and enthusiasm, I can totally feel the energy bouncing off the magnetosphere towards me,  when I'm in the snow/rain, going up some junk-snow pass, wondering just how many miles *this* one is going to be and singing the entire Bob Dylan (well, nothing after the 80's) catalog to myself.

How does it feel, to be on your own, no direction home, like a complete unknown

Feels OK, Robert, feels, OK.


Wish me safe passage to Pinedale and beyond! Sorry the SPOT is off, still looking for batteries to replace the worn out ones.

Finally; I would of loved to be a fly on the wall to hear Paul A and Justin Simoni's conversation as they passed and Paul debates detours or not.

Paul wants to do a lot of the passes, including Richmond Peak and the Canadian Flathead. He thinks Flathead will be plowed/free by the time he's there. I told him that Richmond Peak is damn dangerous currently.


I'm really near the place where the Wyoming reroutes start, I'm looking at 3 major passes, the first doesn't look too bad, but the third is insanity. 50 miles? I think I have to tap out and take the reroute. Adventurous is one thing. Dangerous is another.

The bike path over the dillon damn is still available 24hrs. I had a nice chat with the police there around midnight.
EDIT: actually, are you talking about the bike path itself, or just the road? When I was there, barriers were on the road, not the path. This was just last weekend.

Artist are you really going for the Flathead?

If it's safe, I'd like to try. Doing any of the main routes when there's alternatives means giving up GC chances.

All this talk of snow on this thread has created a vortex of fear:

Right from the start, there was constant talk of the horrors awaiting the Class of 2010. As I had already heard, the previous week had seen a foot of snow and plenty of rain at Mount Laguna, fifty miles from the border. Fuller Ridge, near Mount San Jacinto only 170 miles from Campo and normally bare this time of year, was socked in with snow and had nearly killed one early hiker. The Sierra, seven hundred miles away, were experiencing a cool spring after a late snow, and there would likely be tons of snow throughout hiking season. One of my neighbors at the campground showed me pictures of Fuller Ridge, where he'd been a week earlier (many people ride back from the trail to Kickoff in order to avoid crowds), and it looked like deep winter in the northeast. Rumors spread like wildfire, and I began to hear more people say they might skip sections of the trail and come back later when everything was clear.

Hiking Through Hyperbole: The Vortex of Fear - 3
I was always amazed at the abundance of wildflowers and other plants in an area that seemed so inhospitable to life.

Then there were the fire closures. When the crowd wasn't talking about the impassable snow, they were talking about the hundred-mile road walks due to the two major fires from 2009. The Forest Service had closed sections of the trail due to these fires, and no official reroute had been set by the PCTA, which meant hikers had to walk along hot, dusty roads for days. “I didn't come out here to walk on a road,” was the most common sentiment. “This is what a hundred-mile road walk looks like to me,” said one hiker, sticking his thumb out.

Several days later I heard the best advice for dealing with all these problems. While in the first trail town, Warner Springs, a day-hiker who had been at Fuller Ridge only a few days earlier reassured my hiking companions and me. “Forget about it,” he said in a big, boisterous voice. “Fuller Ridge is no problem. Yeah, there's snow, but you just deal with it when you get there. Don't worry about it before that. All these towns and the Kickoff are just a big vortex of fear. Everyone's sitting around and talking up the problems and scaring each other more and more. The best thing to do is plug your ears and get away from it.”

As nervous as the “vortex of fear” made me, I moved on and tried to focus on the immediate future.

We're doing the same thing as these thru hikers. BUT, the gurus of the route have also made detailed and substantial alternatives because of the conditions. They're doing that for a reason and guru is no random thru-hiker and we should all listen to what's being said. The action to make alternatives is 100% the correct one and I am really amazed and impressed at how this is all being handled. I'm sure lots of people have horror stories of less than ideal organizers.

So, I'd like to do Flathead. Hell, I'd LOVE to do it, but I'm very wary to convince others that they should, too. If it means trudging through snow, I'll bring snowshoes and take the day+ time penalty. Training for me has been a lot of snowshoeing in the mountains, lots of hiking high summits, some running AND lots of gym time (think upper body). I've also trudged through a snow-laden pass on the route. I'm in shape for the self-masochism. Sounds like a hell of a lot of type-2 fun, stinky wet feet or not.

If it means fording a dangerous river, perhaps ALONE, filled with swift, close to freezing water well - that's just too bad - not a risk I'm about to take. I'm looking for experiences, I'm not wanting to not take the alternatives to inflate my ego or anything. I'm "The Artist" - I'd probably prefer we all go into Antelope Wells together holding hands and singing a song, or something.

But we all have different goals and different reasons to do this race. We're all, basically amateurs at this and amateur means, "for the love of it"