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. Looks like more 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. Now, it seems to me that this race would appeal to folks who want to ride hard, all day. It seems like one might naturally enjoy hanging and riding with folks of a similar mindset. But! 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 that night 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, get rolling before the guy you were chatting with zips up after a pee break. Sure, in the end all those clumps of 30 seconds would add up. At the same time, if you're hangin' with some folks who all like to get a move on and not dawdle 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 get spread out but often do like to ride, eat, bunk together from time to time? Sure, maybe not all the time. 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. I wonder if they ride it a bit like that. Just mullin' it over...lookin' at the boot-tracks. (PS: Hey, many 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. )
Yeah totally agree that there is a big social aspect to it. The peloton that formed last year is a pretty big example of it. 8 guys riding together for bits of the race but they met up and lost each other numerous times.
The leaderboard can be a bit confusing ... due to the timing of the signals and whatnot, it is impossible to tell how far apart most guys are riding most of the time. Also, the rule about no drafting means that they can't ride too close some of the time.
Check out Steve (???Wilkinson???) ride report from last year. He had a bit of a tough time mentally before the start but says that he couldn't and wouldn't have done it without the other guys there.
Matt Lee does want to ride by himself a fair amount of the time and he obviously enjoys it. That is probably a pretty key ingredient to his success.
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