Stappler in Lima already.  Wow.  

Wow, indeed.  We have JP leaving Lima at 4:22:30, and now Craig is there at 4:05:30, likely to be leaving soon.  The lead is only growing... how long can he hold this pace?

It'll be quite a while until we see the JP flag reappear in Lima, and start heading out.  16 or 17 hours...

Mario - glad you heard from Wade.  I couldn't see anything amiss in his shared page.  Is he still riding, or has he scratched?

Max has been riding so close to Eszter's record pace it is cracking us up here at TL HQ (attached shot from right now).  Look out Max!

Eric Foster had a slow morning or a long night in Lincoln. Max's comment about the young bucks going out too fast seems to be playing out...

Just wanted to point out the excellent TD coverage over at HalfPastDone, courtesy of TDer Jill Homer:

http://halfpastdone.com/

I added halfpastdone to my RSS feed and liked it on Facebook to stay up with the (perhaps daily) updates.

Question..  does track leaders somehow include the South to North Riders in the "standings" trying to figure out when I look at race pace and rider standings if those guys are calculated somehow?

No, northbound riders aren't factored in.  Northbound and southbound are two separate races, run concurrently.  I suppose it would be possible to rank folks according to total miles covered, which would be an interesting number, but not really too meaningful as far as racing goes.

Though Mr. Money might disagree with me there.  We'll see where the 'golden spike' hits this year!

CS is killing it and definitely well ahead of record pace, but it looks like JP's arrival times in both Lincoln and Butte are inaccurate on the chart - he has a point on his page showing him in Lincoln 2:17 from the start: http://trackleaders.com/tourdividei.php?name=Jay_Petervary

Didn't JP lose his spot along the way?  My guess is that caused some problems in the Lincoln and Butte split times?

Yep, JP lost his SPOT for a significant stretch of his record run.  I believe we didn't get him a replacement until Lima.  However, we do have a few points for him in the history, so it's possible myself or Matthew fabricated a few.  We're checking with him to see if he has any splits we can drop in.  Until then, the JP blue flag is going to get passed and we'll see how it looks after Lima.  No doubt, Craig is well ahead of record pace and so far showing no signs of slowing down.

sfuller- there is a resize option but when i go smaller it says that it unable to complete the operation- i think there is another way to resize for web, just don't have time to monkey w/it

I resized them -- they were huge!  Please see if you can get them smaller before posting next time, or send them to me at smorris@topofusion.com.  Thanks!

Just noticed ScottM's errant point, and fixed one for Andrew Carney as well.  Occasionally there are some really crazy points that get logged.

Glad to see an SM dot crushing the route out there.  This SM once tried to race the divide, and had there been dots back then, it wouldn't have been doing any crushing!

I just looked at Craig's average daily mileage, as computed by trackleaders.  246 miles per 24 hour period.  (!!!)

Now THAT is a kick-ass piece of programming!  Very nice indeed!  Not only men's record pace, but women's as well.  

Thanks!  I think it's a fun way to compare the records to everyone.  We're loving it here at TL HQ.  I just changed the record icons to quoteboxes to make them stand out a little more on the map.

Kristen Arnold has 19 days listed for her EST finish time (record pace).  Currently she is behind the ZOOOM EH dot, though.

No tent icon for Stappy and Hall -- that's a bold move for the start of a grand tour.  They have a solid lead on JP's dot -- stationary for now since he didn't log a point for a while to the border.

I also added a dropdown by the raceflow to show different plots per category.  Look at our 3 Triple Crown racers -- all very close!

Hold your breath, Justin, they'll be there soon.

MH and CS into and out of Elkford in ~7:20, more than an hour ahead of record pace.  Smokin'.

Not knowing when Paul Attalla started, but it seems (by my math, which could be wrong) he is riding at or near record pace.

Your math be good.

I just added our ITTers to the leaderboard, as well as the Men's and Women's records.  So you can get a direct comparison of Paul and JP.  He's ~3 hours back as of Whitefish according to the SPOT dots.

Way to get it rolling, Joey.  I just threw down $250 from trackleaders, again thanking them for the continued support and enthusiasm for bikes on the trail.  Hopefully a little more tribal pressure will help and another plea to show them some support (and mention bikes in the comment field!).

After listening to recent snow reports, this seems to have the makings of a very fast year with, unless fires close things up in NM, the full course open.  Not sure there is a contender in the pack for taking back the record, but what about the rest of the GC?  Could this be the fastest mid-pack year yet?

There are some contenders for the record, Craig Stappler being one.  It's going to be a good year.

For those that have rented SPOT units through Track Leaders, have you received word about how we are receiving the units?

Rentals will be at the Banff Y lodge / hostel front desk in Banff, after Wednesday.

In 2009 we had no idea Apple was out there, so it was the most awesome surprise a Sargents Mesa weary bikepacker could be greeted by.  He was curious to quiz me about the (then still fairly new) trackleaders system, and told me about his IR (or laser?) counting system on the trail above his meadow.  Such a cool guy and great to talk to.

Toby, your Coney's feast sounds divine, and worthy of Snow White herself.  I'll join you for it.  Just use a commercial service, hired after race start and without use of a cell phone, to fly it in. 

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the purest of them all? 

I'm not sure how you are rationalizing the 'commercial' part of "commercially available" for trail angels.  Also, consider someone that works summers and can only do a fall ITT with no Apple to benefit from.  Fair to them?

Then, where do you draw the line between "a few cookies, a bowl of soup, and a coke" and taking too much?  Aren't you drawing an arbitrary line?  If it's in the same class as a commercially available service, shouldn't you be able to take as much as you want, just as you can buy as much as you want from a gas station?

I have no problem with people taking some supplemental goodies from someone as awesome as Apple, just so it's clear where I stand.  I'd love for Apple to stay on the route, and don't think it should be banned by the rules.  But I don't think there's any doubt that not partaking is a more pure and self-support way to race the CTR.  Allowing it requires some amount of rationalization and not taking ourselves too seriously, which is something I think we should (continue to) do.

Cheers Toby. 

Apple -- thanks for the post here, and for considering CTR racers in your relocation.

I would get in touch with Stefan Griebel, the CTR race director, to ask his opinion.  I'll send you his contact info by email in case you don't have it.

IMHO, a self-support super-purist would not take anything from a trail angel in a remote location (it's a bit of a gray area).  But luckily the option to refuse cookies and soup is there for everyone, so I would hope you set up on the route and be there with all the awesomeness you've been so kind to provide over the years.

All the best,

Scott Morris

Good heads up.  FYI, there's a fire perimeter layer on the TD tracker that shows how close things are getting to the route.  I see the Thompson Fire on it.

Anyone know the link to Scott morrisons website for the V2 .gpx file?

http://topofusion.com/divide/gps.php

Note there's also a custom vector basemap (.img file) for the divide route, new this year.

It won't be any earlier than 5:00am!  Tracker will be updated with actual start time after everyone is rolling.

I'm a little confused about why the track on Trackleaders would differ from the "official" route.

Is this a permanent detour? Does the gpx file on Scott Morris' website have the correct track (including this detour)?

Sorry about that.  The tracker had the 'v1' file from last year.  The GPX on my site is correct, the tracker was wrong.  I've fixed the tracker to have the most current GPX file.

Good catch, folks, thanks.

Also, there was a question about SPOT availability.  We've still got rentals.  Drop us a note: info@trackleaders.com