Yet to read this but
https://gearjunkie.com/great-tour-divid ... -josh-kato

Maybe it's the same as the above article? I'll catch up with both tomorrow

So he trains on a fat bike....

At least I'm doing one thing right then!

*cough*

Three months

*cough*

Eeek!

Time to get out for some decent bikepacking adventures I think....

I have a couple in mind.

Quick question:

Where can I find a photo heavy blog of the TD or GDMTR? You know, one of those full of really nice pictures that make you want to go and ride it.
Cheers

Alpinum wrote:Quick question:

Where can I find a photo heavy blog of the TD or GDMTR? You know, one of those full of really nice pictures that make you want to go and ride it.
Cheers

There are quite a few picture collage videos on you tube.

Alpinum, look up mountainbaker's flickr pages via the 2015 race thread on here, some great images there. The race threads on bikepacking.net have some good ones too, a german chap from 2013 took some lovely pics. I think it's hard to capture some landscapes on a camera and the open spaces of the US are far more inspiring to me that the images might suggest. I tried, a few in this flickr album start to get there, https://www.flickr.com/photos/67338272@ ... 4480077423
with apologies for selfies contained in that link

Glad you liked my pics James. Alpinium, here you go https://www.flickr.com/photos/gabes/alb ... 6139130996

mountainbaker wrote:Glad you liked my pics James. Alpinium, here you go https://www.flickr.com/photos/gabes/alb ... 6139130996

Some amazing pics there, it was what finally pushed me over the edge!

Anyone riding this year got plans for Easter BH weekend?

I find myself with a wife in Colombia and no commitments for the Fri-Sat-Sun.

GregMay wrote:Anyone riding this year got plans for Easter BH weekend?

I find myself with a wife in Colombia and no commitments for the Fri-Sat-Sun.

I'm not but will be at the Braunton 150, not sure it will be particularly divide-esque though.

I was thinking the other day that if I was prepping for the TD I'd head back up to the borders and ride Rays B350 route between Moffat and Spithope Bothy and back. 175km/3300m each way, all bar 3km is gravel-tastic. Its really quiet and even on the bank holiday I saw only saw 2 people all day.

There is obviously scope to extend around that around the kielder area...

I find myself with a wife in Colombia

Is that the result of one of those really bonkers nights out?

Last night an Alaskan lady cyclist I was chatting to said she had breakfasted with Lael Wilcox between her TD appearances last year. I was impressed.

So yes, three months to go and time to panic train.

jameso wrote:

I find myself with a wife in Colombia

Is that the result of one of those really bonkers nights out?

One of those - how did I get myself to Colombia in the first place moments :)

Cheers for the advice about the photos. My girlfriend has been talking the GDMBR, so I thought she might like some more impressions. She especially enjoyed this one https://youtu.be/oa_28YltsuY.

Has anybody here considered using a Lauf fork to dampen the trail buzz and perhaps stop the dreaded numb hand syndrome? Fat tyres might also help, but I expect that would add a considerable drag penalty.

A Lauf has less to go wrong than a sus fork so it scores there, so long as the springs don't break off. It's an undamped spring so I'd want to know what the pogo-ing reaction is like. Hitting a section of washboard at 20mph+ on a descent was so much more brutal than I could have expected, there's no way to deal with that sort of violent shake-down apart from good line choice, speed control, unweighting the front if you can over short sections. Had me cursing out loud at times, once I could see straight again : ) I was on a rigid bike but one that's particularly good at handling stuff like that on natural trails, even so I soon started to respect the ripples and slow down if I couldn't avoid them.

Big tyres (and good riding position) imo are good for that sort of thing. Drag isn't an issue, the right tyres on big rims will roll well on those tracks. It's a shame that the good tread patterns for that sort of terrain don't come in a proper 2.4 size.

My first attempt I used Fox Floats and there were some sections I really welcomed them. Second attempt was on Niner RDO carbon and my wrists took a good beating. Next time (hopefully it'll be third times' a charm) I'll use the RDO's again as I kept forgetting to unlock the Floats after smooth(ish) sections and chewed out the damper. Solid forks force picking a better line.

Greetz

S.

I'm hoping tubeless 2.4s and carbon forks will be comfy enough!

johnnystorm wrote:I'm hoping tubeless 2.4s and carbon forks will be comfy enough!

Similar. It's been fine for the past two years anyway.

I used RS Reba's in 2011 race and found the wash board tough going. When I toured down to Hartsel and along CDT to Denver in 2013 I used Niner carbon forks and they were fine so would use again.

Just finished Tour Aotearoa on Lauf forks and have to say I liked them. Gave a bit of cushioning without weight or maintenance penalties. Not cheapest option though.

From a mental preparation point of view I'm thinking about the route and how to break it down into manageable chunks to think about.
Before I rode the HT550 I created a list of sections with info for each such as distance, elevation gain, re-supply options and major features at and it definitely helped to get my head around the route as a whole.
I've got the ACA book which breaks the route down into ~80 days (too many chunks to keep in my head) and the maps which are in 7 sections (too few chunks and therefore each section is too big to get my head around).
I think I would ideally like to break it down into 20 or so chunks so that these will approximately be a day's riding for each at a decent racing pace.
Has anyone already created such a list?

Could you not do four of the ACA "Days" in a day? That would be roughly 130 miles per day.

Hi whitestone

I'm not trying to work out my actual days of riding, as I know there are way too many variables to know where I am likely to get to at the end of each day.

I want a way of thinking about how the route links up and the challenges within that is easy to mentally digest.

I will probably use the "days" from the book to help make my list as you suggest.