Ultra Racing setups for Colorado Trail Race!?

[Stefan_G]

Hmmm, expensive?  Here's some perspective and talking points to justify spending your (or my) wife's money on gear:

Say the CTR takes you 7 days.  24 hours of Moab is $330 + $10 per person per night camping, so if you have 1 crew person, that's $350 for one 24 hour period.  At these rates, the CTR would cost you $2450 just to enter!

And what are most of us non-pro's left with after a 24 hours of Moab race?  Memories.
And after the CTR?  Memories + a bunch of great gear that you can use all the time, including other free multi-day events.  I can think of a few that are banging around out there looking for participants...

So, although the price of admission to the sport of bikepacking may seem high, once you're geared up, costs diminish significantly!

[ramstrong1]

It's that "gearing up" that is getting my wife down   You're right though.  Totally worth it compared to expense of "sign up" racing!  Thanks for all of your hard work putting this all together!  No offense intended to the sport or its supporters!   

[Pivvay]

Gear lasts a long time if you're nice to it. I still have a $15 heatsheets bivy that's survived several races and those things are fairly fragile.

My main Montbell bivy is still pretty much perfect, my WM highlite has a patch in the feet from packing up on the CTR near a barbed wire fence (whoops!) and my favorite north face DIAD jacket is starting to get more and more patches but that just means it's been well loved! The DIAD has come with me on every bikepacking and backpacking adventure I've taken in the last few years so I'd say it's already earned it's $75 purchase price.

When in doubt packing, the extra warm jersey, baselayer or tights are well worth it when the weather is bad. The 20 deg sleeping bag instead of the 40, leaving the camera behind or extra bright lights are not worth it (to me). Lots of food is a good idea but don't go crazy...a full jar of peanut butter is HEAVY racer who will remain nameless! Haha