Chris, while I haven't raced the route - I have cycled it in a decent time, and since I live in the same area as you, it might be good to meet up.

Douglas (at edesign.co.uk)

A question for the non Americans or Canadians. Do racer's get delayed at the border crossing. I know you can get a visa in advance, but is it beneficial to travell from the uk to the usa then up to banff, or is it just as quick to go to calgary, banff and then rooseville?

Cheers.

Chris.

Just watching Billy Rice's dot - looks like he is trying to see if the fire diversion is over. Perhaps he can produce a "pure" yoyo yet?

Apparently Jesse was picked up by a truck driver unconscious and driven to Como when he is staying currently. He will have to backtrack in the morning to the spot he came off, assuming he is recovered. Not doing too bad for a rookie...

Does that mean he falls foul of the (in my opinion) daft rule "Advancing (forward) on the route by any means other than one's own pedal power is strictly prohibited" - hope not!

Brooks Lake Road must be completely clear and dry right now. It doesn't seem like that section has slowed anyone down so far.

Oooh! that was said with feeling - I remember that this was a tough section for you....

Wonder what Justin's up to...it's unusual for his SPOT to have stayed in the same place for 10 hours...out of batteries or just not on? 

I guess he has a mechanical - looks like he is pushing up hill and coasting down. He talked of buying some pedals in WalMart - Grants is not the best of places to fix things! It is still a long way to Silver City to get that fixed though.

Just got my email copy from Adventure Cycling and read this piece. Does anybody know anyone worth nominating?

WHO'S YOUR HERO?
The nomination period for the 2011 Bicycle Travel Awards opened July
1, and will continue through September 30. Those awards are: the June
Curry Trail Angel Award, the Pacesetter Award, the Sam Braxton Bicycle
Shop Award, and the Volunteer of the Year Award. All are open to
nominations from anyone, except for the Volunteer of the Year Award,
which is internal to the staff of Adventure Cycling. So, nominate
your favorite trail angel, pacesetter, or bike shop today!
http://www.adventurecycling.org/awards

It is fantastic how supportive everyone is - Jill, I so enjoyed your writing on your race. In particualr the extract in the first Cordillera, so now I will have to buy your book.

Just watching Steve and Cricket take off from their camp to go over Fleecer - hope they enjoy their breakfast at Wyse River, and no doubt they will be gunning for Lima tonight - Go Steve! - Go Cricket!

Don't know enough about how fire restrictions are lifted - but I found this site that allows you to overlay the data taken from overflies onto google earth.

http://www.lasconchas.lanl.gov/index.html

The latest photos are from Friday showing the burn heading to the East of Abiquiu. Can anyone fill in what the impact of this is likely to be?

Will you be carrying a cell phone?  When traveling, that's my alarm clock.

I bought a pay as you go phone when I rode the route last Summer with the intention of using it as camera, alarm, text sender and receiver and phone (in that order). As an alarm though it was useless as it needed to be on and have an active signal to know the time.... So check your phone alarm operates when it is powered off and no active signal before you rely on it!

I'll not use a cell phone; I'll use public phones ...

When I rode the route I bought a pay as you go Verizon phone that I bought in WallMart for $30 - that included a camera, that I used, a USB charger and $10 of phone credit. I found it usefull for maintaining contact through texts and through incoming phone calls (cost of phoning out of US is too high and using a pre-pay card awkward) it would have proved usefull to get bikes spares sent to where I was going next as well. I had hoped to use it as an alarm clock but that didn't work if the phone was out of range.

Solid design, field proven, popular solution: http://www.forumslader.de (Available in German only right now.)

-- sigma7

What about the PedalPower or the E-Werk?

Thanks both of you for the information. I used a Kemo M172 device (Manufactured in Germany - clearly the home of engineered kit for long distance riding) that is a very neet unit, and potted so I can't look at all the circuitry, but had the two faults I mentioned in my post. The Australian designed PedalPower unit is quite a beast, great if you also need a power store. The E-work has the problem of setting switches that makes it slightly more vulenrable. The forumslader site showed ideas similar to mine, but yes I will still build my own charger to optimise weight and efficiency. The Kemo would have been ideal if it had worked properly!

Assuming the TDR file can be made to work there are the typical battery issues—has a rechargeable I assume?  If so not a game stopper but you will need to carry and use your wall charger ---or check out what some of the guys are doing with dynamo hubs and recharging

I tried that trick - had a garmin edge and a Schmidt dyno-hub. I bought a power supply from ebay. For some reason they set the signal line for the USB cable up wrong so every time I plugged the Garmin in, it thought there was a computer and changed mode. I also used the charger to charge my USB rechargeable head torch, which worked until the input smoothing capacitor in the unit finally expired. Either the charger dosn't like not having a load, which happens when the device gets fully charged, or it was the high speed descents which generated too high a voltage. If you go this route check out your kit beforehand and ensure that the charger unit has protection against overvoltage.

The alternative is to charge the Garmin from disposable batteries, as a solar collector needs to be quite big and unless you stay in a motel every night you won't get enough charge during the day. I didn't want to carry a pile of batteries to power all the kit and wanted good lights on the bike, which is why I opted for the hub solution. Next time I ride the route I'll build my own charger circuit!

But AW isn't a campground and I wouldn't know what the border patrol thinks about having some campers out there. Maybe one of the veterans knows Tim and could check with him? Otherwise, hotel in Deming or Lordsburg or camping in Hachita seems to be the best choice and that makes 9 am about the earliest manageable time if we want to treat it like a Grand Depart.

They are probably still building the new border post, so the car park will be a mud bath at best. I camped there in the rain last Summer. The problem will be that the border patrol will stop you if you are in a car driving towards the border after it shuts. Also the best way from El Paso is probably the greyhound, it goes more often than the train, but you will need to have your bike boxed for transit - not sure if that is true of the train.

Box your  bike with cardboard bike boxes from your local cycle shop - recycle in Bannf then get some new cardboard boxes at the other end. Don't know about Phoenix, but no prpoblem getting boxes in El Passo. Oh and if you go on a greyhound bus you need to box it too - but that can be done more roughly with cardboard and tape from a local store. (I rode the route - not racing last year)

Isn't it time to stop trying to make the rules fit the game? Each year there is another exception that adds to the rules, and so somehow they will never be sufficiently complete to fit every circumstance. Perhaps coming from a country witthout a written constitution, I can see the benefits of a simple statement of intent as being sufficient to cover all cases and with some way - say a public vote on this site, after both parties have given their case.

After all, we all know that Erik had no choice and if he had not had the mechanical problems to deal with he would have probably been fighting it out with Matthew all the way to Antelope Wells - equally it could be argued that the reason that Erik was catching Matthew before he trashed his drive train was because Matthew was taking better care of his. All conjecture, but in the spirit of the rules there is no dispute of the outcome - Erik, you deserved your joint second place in a fantastic time and managed to cope not only with the dreadfull conditions but also the mental struggle of getting your bike back on the road.

On another note - is there any attempt to note the age of contestants? I had first assumed that "Veteran" refered to some age limit until I realised it was just the converse of "rookie" - just asking ot see the time both to recognise the achievements of some of you guys, and also to see the time I would have to beet!

To everyone though who has taken part, fiinishing or not or if the "rules" are against you - we are all just knocked out by what you have achieved.

Well done Marshal! Looks like an early morning finish, to a great ride.

So Erik is in Pinedale, where Mat stopped for a while yesterday. The time difference there is 15 hours, and he was 24 hours behind getting into Lima because of his mechanical problem. So in 2 days of riding, he has made up 9 hours on Matthews record breaking pace. Just amazing!

 

Great race - and with the poor conditions, it looks like a real challenge to achieve. If anyone is running a book - my money is on Erik Lobeck, I can see him slowly cathcing up with Mat.

Last year I decided to ride the GDMBR as a through ride and came across this race while searching the web for help in preparing for it. Its purity - no support sounds great but putting it into rules has created a minefield for everyone. I probably won't ride the route as an ITTD, as I don't need others to rubber stamp my achievement. Similarly the crazy position where the rules get too zelous - such as when an independant race watcher turned up with a new wheel last year, or now when Erik is apparently in breach of the forward moving rule, doesn't affect who I think completed the race distance. They  have in my view, and hopefully theirs, the credit for that achievement, and nit picking the rules can't change that.

Well Matthew and Eric must be in sight of each other! Hopefully they will make it to Lima together - and the race then restarts through what must be horendously muddy conditions.... My hat off to all the racers!

Hi, I've been looking for the cue sheets for a while - are these just the list of places on the GDMBR maps, or are they augmented?