Bears like buttons too!  Or he's been trying to munch on it.  Hope BL is okay.

"Most of the time I was out riding I had no idea what I was doing.  I finished the race thinking, 'Right! NOW I'm ready to race the Tour Divide!'"

That's seriously what I think every time I do a new race, and many times I repeat a race I've done numerous times before, regardless of length or results.  Each iteration allows you to fine tune your strategy and push your limits just a little more.

Record is 18d 5h I think? So they look to be behind but maybe within reach.  Second FKT ain't bad considering the competition and the times other very strong teams have posted.

Agree with Toby.

Can never have too many styles IMO.  Me and another guy here on the forums were discussing organizing a local gravel grinder and one of the options we thought about was a PMBAR-style event.  Ultimately that'll have to be next year or the next, but it'd be a hell of a lot more fun than grinding out miles at race pace.  Makes it more strategic, more interesting, and simply more fun to the folks who enjoy that kind of thing.

Jefe got a LOT of sleep last night (for him at least). Is the big push coming?

He's gonna have to pull a couple LONG ones.  Looks like he's ~14.75 hrs behind The Ghost.  From here on out JP stopped for 4 hrs prior to Cuba, and 4 hrs prior to Silver city.  May have had some other smaller stops but I didn't have time to look through all the points and his speed vs time plot is bit wonky.  Either way, that's ~8 hrs sleep over the next ~72 hrs of racing after 12 days so far AND bridging the current gap.  I think we're all pulling for him, hope he can dig deep enough.  Regardless it's been a stellar ride.

I think the thread title is the issue, but don't see what the problem is. 

What you're really suggesting is an alternate TDR for a small/medium group of folks, just call it something different.  Another option would be to make it a stage race with very long days.  Pick spots ~14-16 hours apart (given the amount of daylight) and everyone stops there for the night.  Start at 6am every morning.  Fastest overall time wins.  Probably get more motivation as you have a mini GD every morning (or whenever folks get up and at it).  Would take longer overall but absolutely be "softer" and perhaps attract some of the folks we hear about bending the rules.  That'd keep the TDR GD for the "purists" etc and the world is a happy place. Maybe.

Maybe not.  Too many people on the route at once, new race stepping on the toes of pioneers, and all the other issues that come up about this time every year.  Not sure how many of those are really issues and how much are speculation by armchair quarterbacks.

+1

Tracker might include all the side trips and backtracking one does? Or quoted length simply hadn't been measured accurately?

Right on Toby.  To loosely paraphrase Mos Def:

"You know what's gonna happen with ultra racing?
Whatever's happening with us.
People talk about ultra racing like it's some giant living in the hillside
coming down to visit the townspeople. We ARE ultra racing.
Me, you, everybody.  WE are ultra racing.
So ultra racing is going where we go.
So the next time you ask yourself where ultra racing is going,
ask yourself.. where am I going? How am I doing?
Til you get a clear idea."

I can send you the merged file if you need it.

Could always use the archive here:
http://trackleaders.com/tourdividei.php?name=Jay_Petervary

Doesn't tell you much about pace through certain sections though unless you want to do the tedious math of computing points from 131 days 9 hours and 20 minutes ago.  You get better at-a-glance info from the splits of his ghost on the tracker for this year IMO.

If true, awesome for Pivot, but seems like they could find a better model to fit the style of the ride.

Yikes! You're right, that's just shakedown trip I did a few weeks, ago! Got 4 in that time, plus 2nd place in a gravel grinder! (should now be fixed)

The GPS track says it's > 3,000 miles, but the elevation profile looks very suspicious (lots of repeated peaks and valleys). I'm double-checking. 3k miles is a long haul, even without the mountains to climb - I wonder if it's more than half - the *perimeter* of CO is 1600 miles. The main course is really the mountains - I'd like the route to be direct, efficient, and still be off paved highways. In CO, that should be a huge order!

Oh, man I wish. I bet it's lost in time, if I'm to gauge my own Word docs from 1995 (which would be middle school!). I think Benton was an accomplished mountain climber in his own right, so it's just not some dude hanging in CO for a while, or anything.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy, such a different style. Check out the photos of the totaled car.

Nice job on the gravel grinder. Huge week!

I saw those car pics.  I'd have a hard time continuing after something like that happening to the support crew.  Not judging, just saying it'd be mentally tough.

The gpx file is strange.  It shows up in sections for me, says 3222.3 miles.  But when I merge the separate tracks into one (so I could see the total elevation profile) I get 1621.7 miles and 226K ft in elevation (without the summit hikes!!!).  That also seems to match when you start mapping it out with Strava, Google, etc.

Oh, and my, "35 days" estimate is based soley on this one account of some dude doing it, almost 20 years ago:

http://www.wwwright.com/climbing/speed/Unsupported14Effort.htm

SURELY with modern equipment, and all the beta known in 2014, the time can be met or beaten. In almost 20 years ago, and no one has clocked a faster time - or a time at all! It's quadruple the amount of time between John Stamsted ITT'ing the GDMBR and the first Great Divide Race!

Another perspective, is that there's a group of 3 right now that's gunning to do it in 100 days. 100 days! They've taken up to 4 days off at a time - it's def. not a speed run - more of a party on wheels, thing (lucky them).

Yet another perspective is that Andrew Hamilton has done it via bike, with full support (including bike changes, full sag, etc) in 19 days and change. Is doing it self-support going to take almost twice as long?

Looks like that gpx track linked above is only a partial route?

I'm curious if you ever got the written report of Benton's trip from Andrew?  I bet that'd be a fun read.

On a side note, I've been following Andrews record attempt, pretty interesting to see another way to race.  Talk about logistics!  For example, having someone drive a raft up today so he can cross a river vs doing an out and back and driving to the next mountain.  Also, looks like he's on pace to reach his goal. 

Jefe is in Salida, 5 hours back From Phantom JP. What does everyone think, can he catch him? Does anyone know if JP had issues with weather and what not from here on out?

This is typically when Jefe sleeps less and goes for the gold, at least in previous CTR's.

Don't quote me on it but I think JP ran into storms in NM that slowed him down a bit.  And of course there's the other worry through NM that I won't even name...

Jefe seems to have gotten some good rest over the last couple days so maybe feeling strong enough for some long pulls in the coming days?  Very cool to watch either way, and given the weather this year it'll be a great ride regardless of records.

Wow, that's a big route!  Any idea on total length?  I can't wait to see some pictures and write up on the progress/completion.

I like the route you take over to the Dunes.  My mom used to drive us through there going the opposite direction when we were kids.  That's some nice scenery, and I bet a real fun thing to see coming down into the dunes.  None of my friends believe me those are there in CO.

I think Billy Rice finished the first half of his yo-yo ride last year earlier.  He missed the SOBO Grande Depart by only a couple of days.

Good memory, looks like he got there at ~9pm on 6/16/13.

What do you mean by hill?  6% grade paved roads? 20% rocky descents with big drops? Vastly different things.

Many shops have demo bikes that you can rent/borrow. Similarly sized friends will sometimes let you borrow.  Demo events held by bike shops/bike brands.  The big 3 do them pretty often. Etc.

Maybe Kurt will chime in on this sometime.

I think you have to bend the rules a little depending on how "strict" you want to go.  Generally paleo wants to minimize dried fruits like dates etc as they have a ton of sugar, cured/processed/smoked meats like bacon, honey, etc.  That being said, to race or be athletic at all on paleo it's generally accepted to modify the paleo diet to include non-paleo carbs before/during and immediately after exercise.

You said you don't like dates, but a simple thing to carry would be a bunch of lara bars in different flavors as they're basically just dates and nuts, won't hurt the mouth, and have enough moisture to be able to eat them while riding.  For 17,500 that's approx 80 lara bars, which would weigh 8.4 lbs so you'd want to take some more dense foods to minimize weight/volume needed to carry that much food.  Outside of that, jerky, nuts, and dried fruits are all pretty calorie dense.  Hard boiled eggs could work, but I'm not a fan so wouldn't pack them.  And of course there's oil and nut butters - some folks have been known to simply take a gallon (or more) of olive oil or peanut butter (I'd do almond butter) as their only source of calories but I'd find that disgusting for multiple days.  17,500 calories of almond butter would be ~6.6 lbs, olive oil would be something closer to ~4.5lbs (1 gal = 30,000 calories).

Well, you could do 17,500 cals of nuts for starters Seriously though, I think you'd simply pack as much calorie dense food you could that would also keep.  Are you already on a paleo diet or asking for basics?