2016 Tour Divide Preparation

[NelsonC]

Great information Chris.  Much appreciated and very timely.

I was wondering if anyone has seen logs from riders for the number of hours in the saddle each day?  Many people provide daily mileage, but I was wondering if there is much information available on how much pedaling time they spent each day.

Thanks in advance.

[dskunk]

I was wondering if anyone has seen logs from riders for the number of hours in the saddle each day?  Many people provide daily mileage, but I was wondering if there is much information available on how much pedaling time they spent each day.

day   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23
hours   14   14.5   11   16   15.5   13.5   18.5   13   15.5   15   14.5   9.5   16   16   8   18   15.5   16.5   16   12   14.5   6   10.5

It's not pretty. These were my hours in 2014. That's from start to sleep with no deductions for food stops. It felt like I was on the bike a whole lot more. Numbers were guessed at post race but I think they're more or less accurate. 6 hours on day 22! Doesn't that just burn yer cookies.
Cheers, Dave

[kiwidave]

Many people provide daily mileage, but I was wondering if there is much information available on how much pedaling time they spent each day.

Just use the play button at http://trackleaders.com/tourdivide15 and you can watch any rider and see the hours per day.

[NelsonC]

Thanks for the quick replies, much appreciated.

I guess what I was really trying to ask is if anyone has tried to estimate time spent stopping/resting/eating each day (between starting out and stopping for the night). Do you think the spot tracks are accurate enough to try and get an idea on that?

[NelsonC]

Maybe a little background here would help.  I am re-reading Scott Thigpen's book where he keeps leapfrogging "the kids" as he calls them all the way to the end of the race.  It sounds as though Scott rides slower, but longer each day.  This got me wondering how time off the bike during the day compares between people that ride fast, but fewer hours compares with people who ride longer hours?  Are the absolute numbers for hours stopped similar between racers or might there be a bit more correlation in the time spent stopped as a percent of total time start to end in the day?

Maybe I just need to go back to worrying about mapping out all the water stops in NM...

[THE LONG RANGER]

NelsonC, one way to frame this is physiologically. My thought is that you're going to want to go the Slow and Steady route, as it'll most likely save your legs for the Long Haul. Hopefully people are putting in a ton of Long, Slow, Rides right now to work out their aerobic systems.

I think also, in a perfect world, you want to be moving as much as possible when the conditions permit. Outside of NM, that's going to probably mean in the daytime. Any time you can move, you will want to keep going.

You'll also want to keep your sleeping patterns not insanely random, so even if you're not sleeping as much as usual, you can at least keep it somewhat in a normal time frame. That's going to go a long way to you not to go completely bonkers.

You may also want to keep tabs on the weather report, and maybe push it a little more if you know that weather is moving in, knowing you may be shut down in the weather gets completely biblical. If anything, you'll want to try to "Race" any coming bad weather - you want to be on the descent of any pass when the weather hits, rather than heading up.

One way to test all that is to go one some multi-day rides. I think a 3 day ride is enough to see how your body reacts to either rolling slow all day with minimum sleep,  or going slightly faster, with maybe a little more sleep. Me? I pick door #1.

I would even go so far as to ride with a heart rate monitor during the race. Could be some interesting biofeedback to help with decisions on if you should push things or hold back - an elevated resting heartbeat is a sure sign of overtraining - a lot of which you'll start to experience during the TD, since that's exactly what you'll be doing.

Many of the problems in the TD is fighting with your own head: there will be many times when it attempts to persuade you to stop. Is it because you need to rest, or because it just wants to be lazy?
'

[sfuller]

... Chris Plesko and Joe Fox are also going to be two to watch this year also. Joe had an awesome rookie ride in 2015 and I think he'll do something big in 2016.

Joe is tenacious and can do anything he puts his mind to. Looking forward to following his blue dot this year.

[sfuller]

Maybe a little background here would help.  I am re-reading Scott Thigpen's book where he keeps leapfrogging "the kids" as he calls them all the way to the end of the race.  It sounds as though Scott rides slower, but longer each day.  This got me wondering how time off the bike during the day compares between people that ride fast, but fewer hours compares with people who ride longer hours?  Are the absolute numbers for hours stopped similar between racers or might there be a bit more correlation in the time spent stopped as a percent of total time start to end in the day?

Someone had web page that took all of those numbers from Trackleaders and made a really nice graph out of it. I'll see if I can track it down. I can say that  I was trying to get a good solid 6 hours of sleep each night. I seemed to perform better with the extra sleep  and I was still able to hit my sub 25 day goal doing so.

[kiwidave]

The Flathead descent trail seems also to be shared with the creek, so some racers seem to take some trainers for this section.

Any opinions as to the pros/cons of taking a set of trainers for this early wet section to ditch at Eureka? With my luck I'd take the spares but drop my cycling shoes in the water.

[Ailuropoda]

Does anyone know of a write up comparing the wattage drag of a hub dynamo vs the weight of just carrying batteries? I've been digging around a little and dynamo hubs seem to put out around 3W. Add in the drag and and electrical losses and we're talking close to 5W. This is pretty much continuous since at such low power you'll probably charge electronics all day and at night would be running a dynamo light.

For carrying batteries the weight would also be constant. It would come down to how many lbs can you carry for 5W. I played around with some numbers on here: http://bikecalculator.com/examples.html and I think it's close to 1 lbs/W. It depends on your speed, grade and total weight. I went with what I thought were realistic numbers for me, which is surely on the slower and heavier side. I also only looked at positive grades, 5-8%, which from the elevation/grade profiles posted here should be higher than typical (not worst case, but accounting for most of the harder stuff). Riding it on flat ground would have even less of an impact and downhill should even recoup a good fraction of the energy.

Being conservative, couldn't you carry 5 - 10,000 mAh and still come out ahead? I found Aukey 10,000 mAh fast charging battery packs for 8.8 oz. And 50,000 mAh is a lot! The lot of them would only cost $125, meaning cheaper than a dynamo setup. What am I missing here? When does a hub dynamo actually make sense?

I'm going to use a battery powered GPS.    Etrex30.   AA batteries are not that heavy, available everywhere I think, and I get about 20 hours on a pair without the backlight.    I think I'll sacrifice a little weight and carry a few pairs of them.

I charge my light and phone off of my SP PD8 hub and it seems to work well.  I get about five hours of burn time on my Lumina 750 at the lowest setting and in the rolling hills of central Louisiana it takes about six hours to recharge.  The hub itself seem very well-made.  I have thousands of training miles on it and it still rolls smoothly.

I have not noticed any drag from the hub.  But then again I've got 21 pounds of bike, 25 pounds of gear and water, and 220 pounds of me.   A little drag from the hub is probably the least of my problems.

[Ailuropoda]

Hi guys - TD newbie here.

Quick questions regarding handlebars. What is everyone going with and has anyone who's done it before have any advice.

My plan is to run something like the the Soma Mary bars and then fit some aero bars to give myself a different riding position. Thoughts?!

Cheers!

Will

The Jones Loop H bars are very nice.  They looked a little unorthodox when I installed them and I worried a bit but after 30 seconds of riding I was sold on them.  I don't actually vary my hand positions that much.  But they have a lot of places to mount stuff and are very comfortable. 

I might get the carbon ones before the race.

I really can't use aerobars.  I've tried them but the racing position is very uncomfortable to me.

[SouthDownsMTB]

Apidura and Alpkit by Jim Barrow, on Flickr

I got some BarYak bars for mine

[dream4est]

Maybe a little background here would help.  I am re-reading Scott Thigpen's book where he keeps leapfrogging "the kids" as he calls them all the way to the end of the race.  It sounds as though Scott rides slower, but longer each day.  This got me wondering how time off the bike during the day compares between people that ride fast, but fewer hours compares with people who ride longer hours?  Are the absolute numbers for hours stopped similar between racers or might there be a bit more correlation in the time spent stopped as a percent of total time start to end in the day?

Maybe I just need to go back to worrying about mapping out all the water stops in NM...

I posted my thoughts about pushing it too far with lack of sleep in the race analysis thread. There is a point where returns are diminished and good sleep even in hotels not just the ground becomes paramount.

http://www.bikepacking.net/forum/ultra-racing/tour-divide-2015-ride-analysis-site/msg80399/#msg80399

IMO it is hard to regulate pushing the sleep envelope. Once you go too far it is hard to stop yourself and back off. I screwed up twice and didnt see either mistake coming as my judgement was impaired due to lack of sleep. If I make it to Banff this June I plan to have a better plan.

[Christopher R. Bennett]

Maybe a little background here would help.  I am re-reading Scott Thigpen's book where he keeps leapfrogging "the kids" as he calls them all the way to the end of the race.

That was my approach. I'd start early and about 09:30 I'd be passed by up to seven riders. About 13:00 I'd pop into a place and grab a quick bite as they were finishing a leisurely lunch. In the evening would catch up as they were finishing dinner. I'd often ride another 2-4 h in the night, sleep for six hours, and repeat.  In fact the length of day isn't often so important as minimizing those short, time consuming stops during the day which just eat away the time.  I got into Silver City about 21:00 h, grabbed some food at Pizza Hut, went to the car wash and cleaned the mud off my bike, and then rode all night to the border. Moved me up by seven spots when I finished the next morning as the riders had taken a break in Silver City - with some leaving at 03:00.  Did the same in the Transcontinental races as well which let me finish ahead of much better and stronger riders.

So to summarize my strategy ... ride your bike as much as you can, minimizing small stops during the day. When you can't ride any more camp out or stay in a motel if you are fortunate enough to be there. Get up and repeat. You'll be amazed at what you can do. My longest day on the TDR was that run to the finish: 26 h and 397 km. Never conceived it was possible but the body is an amazing machine. And I'm on the wrong side of 50 :-). More details in the race reports at www.tri-duffer.com if interested.

[phil_rad]

I noticed on todays ride in the rain that my jacket is not waterproof, after only 30 minutes. So time for a new one, any suggestions on a light rain jacket with a hood?

[Sandstorm]

I found out the same thing on my last ride in the pouring rain. Still trying to decide on going with a gortex jacket or something like a $100 marmot or pataguchi.
For me the problem is i'll sweat in a rain jacket.. might as well not wear it. I need some sort of ventilation.
Outdoor Resarch (Axiom) has some nice gortex jackets that fit well with a helmet, as well as Mountain Hardwar and Arcteryx (Beta Lt hybrid)
Those are a couple that I really like.

[dskunk]

The Flathead descent trail seems also to be shared with the creek, so some racers seem to take some trainers for this section.

Any opinions as to the pros/cons of taking a set of trainers for this early wet section to ditch at Eureka? With my luck I'd take the spares but drop my cycling shoes in the water.

That section of the trail was in and out of water the whole way down back in 2014. A lot of it was completely rideable, some of it wasn't. I can't imagine stopping and putting on different shoes. It,s a section that most people are going to get to early in the day on day two. Plenty of time for shoes to dry out ( or dry shoes to get wet ). And you don't really want to ditch anything, do ya?

[Flinch]

The Flathead descent trail seems also to be shared with the creek, so some racers seem to take some trainers for this section.

Any opinions as to the pros/cons of taking a set of trainers for this early wet section to ditch at Eureka? With my luck I'd take the spares but drop my cycling shoes in the water.

I took light weight shoes in 2013 and last year. Never again. Tried them on Flathead, then quickly decided that off/on/off shoe dance wasn't worth it. Rest of race just waded with bike shoes - no biggy.

Your ten toes may vary

Glen

[gotchile]

I took light weight shoes in 2013 and last year. Never again. Tried them on Flathead, then quickly decided that off/on/off shoe dance wasn't worth it. Rest of race just waded with bike shoes - no biggy.

Your ten toes may vary

Glen

I remember riding Flathead very well with you Glen.  You switching out shoes, I, not having another pair just decided to wade the stream crossings.  After a bit, you stopped to put your cycling shoes back on and I rode ahead, only to find another crossing a mile or so up the way.  I thought that you may have decided to just wade them at that point.  Good riding with you, I don't think I met anybody that knew the route as well as you.  You really did your homework.  I hope you decide to do it again.

[gotchile]

Last year I wasn't completely satisfied with my handlebar/aerobar/device holding setup on TD.  My Fargo has the stock woodchippers, which I like, with Profile aerobars.  With an etrex 30, cycling computer I really didn't have a good spot for a map case, let alone que sheets.  I came across BarYak http://www.baryak.com/products/.  What has been your experience with these, or your suggestion for having everything at your fingertips?  It's always a juggling act to try and make everything work, and a cost/benefit to everything on TD.
Thanks



Ordered the BarYaks.  Plus they are working on a map holding system for the bars.