I have two buddies with these and they both absolutely love them!

In my experience, saddle bags in particular, tend to need an adjustment about an hour after you start in the morning. After that, if you really tighten them down, they should be good for the rest of the day. Great looking bags, especially for the number of bags that you've made. Well done!

Sorry, another question. Did anybody buy the 100 gram (the very small ones) gas canisters whilst they were at the start? I'm taking my cooker as I like a coffee or 2 before getting on the bike in the mornings (I need my coffee!). The cans are on the no fly list so I will have to source them locally. It also means I'm not reliant on making it to towns for opnen and closing times.

Google says there are campsites in the vicinity, but none of the websites say what they stock.

Like Phil says.... every town has one if not more than one bar (read sandwiches and better coffee than you'll find in most of the world). You hit a lot of towns along the way. FYI - quite a few people seem to have taken little more than an extra jacket and rain gear whilst leaving the sleeping gear at home. Many, either didn't sleep or slept in hotels. It's not really a backcountry route but it is beautiful!

I didn't fly as it's not a terrible drive from my place. In any case, I believe most people had the stuff that they needed (i.e. bike boxes, large luggage, etc.) moved to the end point via the service that was at the start. The sport club at the end of the race is open 24/7 for our use. Hope that helps a bit if others don't happen to see this.

Hi everyone. I am absolutely loving this years TD. However...
I have a question that I'm sure many of you may have already considered.
What do you think about the use of drop bars and cyclocross bikes in what is considered a mountainbike race?
I don't know what the situation is in the US but here in the UK you are not allowed to enter MTB races using cyclocross bikes. Equally I would believe that the use of drop bars would also be frowned upon.
Please don't shoot the messenger here, I think that I am asking a valid question and I am interested in hearing other peoples opinions.
Thanks. Neil.

When I first arrived in Germany from the US where I was a racer and promoter it was rather strange as official race rules banned anything that wasn't a 26" mountain bike. I'd already been on a 29'er, exclusively, for a few years. I entered anyway and never had an issue. I did have one guy forbid a team of 29'ers in a 24 hour race, calling them 'touring bikes'. Now, many years later he's one of the biggest 29'er advocates around. At this point, 10 years later, other than CX bikes in the marathons being dis-allowed, I've seen bikes I would never even sit on, let alone ride in races.

As far as aero-bars, I'm not a fan but I know most are. I have done all my bikepacking/racing without them (including the '12 TDR). I don't even own a set. Most, seem to have music at some point during races here.... at least in bikepacking. I know I do.

I'll see whomever there on the 19th or 20th.

Hi all, I'm not the promoter but I am signed up as a participant. I know that this race is on the Ultra schedule here but there's no thread dedicated to it that I can find so I figured I'd start one.

Here's the link to the website http://www.navad1000.ch/ 1000km and almost 30,000 vertical meters of climbing. http://www.navad1000.ch/Strecke/Strecke As the website says, it goes from Romanshorn on Bodensee/Lake Constance to the Freddy Mercury statue on Genfsee in Montreux. We start on June 20 but I'm not sure of the time.

There's already been one ITT - Dries Brouckaert did the route as a course check and finished it in 6 days/20 hours/20 mins. http://www.navad1000.ch/News/

There will be two companies doing the SPOT tracking Trackleaders (no link yet) & Posi-XX http://www.navad1000.ch/LIVE/Posi-XX. I know nothing about them and their website is really confusing. It seems to be completely set up for race directors but not for fans. Weird.

I have to laugh everytime I look at Ians track... Does he hide when people ride by him or has anyone actually spoken to him? Odd. :-)

Is anyone up to date on some kind of Swiss technical fabric that does truly keep water out?

I assume that's a rhetorical question but.... I'm a bag maker living in Switzerland and I don't know of anything. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. :-)

It was a beautiful route! I saw a lot of Tuscany that I'd never seen before and one of the highlights was seeing the Eroica race going on. A shocking number of beautiful old bikes and people in wool racing through the countryside. The mountain top towns and forts being lit up was also great as was the off-route (backtracking, really) we did to the hot springs on our last night. Thanks to everyone involved. I've attached some of my favorite pics that people took of me as I took very few photos.

Hi Bob... My worry about having a second waterproof layer is when (not if) the water seeps inbetween the layers. Who knows what that latent moisture will do to your bags? My personal preference is to not line my bags but I kind of understand why people do (looks cleaners and some added abrasion resistance). What you lose is that you add at least 50% more weight and the possibility of water seeping in between the layers. Since all the XPac I've used is light colored on the inside, I've never had an issue finding anything.

For what it's worth... and I may have already mentioned it but I don't seam seal my personal bags either, just my tent.

Hey Inkerpok.... cool that you got your bags done and that they work well. Sorry that I was right but I'd rather give you and my customers the truth rather than get their hopes up and end up with wet equipment or clothing. Cuben works quite well be I've found that even that will soak through at some point. Water is just EVIL! :-)

Tape does help but what you'll find, eventually, is that it starts to gum up your needle and even worse, your machine. I recommend using really good office clips. When I have something I really need to hold in place to sew, that's what I use. Also, as you get better at sewing (that's not a comment on your sewing... it's a general statement), you can often do seams without aid that you couldn't do at the beginning.

In any case, quite an interesting bag. Well done.

I don't seam seal and I'll tell you why. In spite of XPac and Cordura being quite water resistant at the beginning, it doesn't take long for the dirt and oils to start building up on and in the fabric and that will be what pulls water into your bags at that point. So, seam sealing, to me, is kind of a Sysiphis-like endevor. However, others do it and claim to be fully-waterproof which I can't quite believe. For me and for what I tell my customers, if you want or need anything to remain dry, use a freezer Zip-Lock or dry bag. Then, you don't have to worry about it at all.

I'm really looking forward to it... as one of the weirdly foreign (read: lost) participants. As an American living in Switzerland I cover a lot of territory.... citizenship-wise. As I know a fair number of the participants, I'm also really looking forward to seeing some old friends as well.

LuLu.com used to do e-books... they don't do them any longer? That's actually where I believe I bought all my first Cordillera digital copies.

Also, thanks to Christopher and all the authors for their stories.

Love the film and I'm really looking forward to May 1 of next year too.

Here's what I use.... http://openmtbmap.org/

Basically, you need to get yourself a micro-SD with a lot of room on it. Take out the one you have, download the maps of your choice (I have 3-4 different countries on mine as I live in Switzerland and it's easy to hit 3 countries in a long ride). Anyway, using MapInstaller, choose the maps you want and install them onto the SD card. I might have oversimplified it a bit but after the first time, it's quite easy.

Using my Grenzstein Trophy experience, I took the dyno to charge power cells which seem, in my case, to work better than direct charging. Also, if I blow up a power cell, it's 20 bucks down the drain instead of hundreds.

I actually think that Tom is the Cancellera of endurance racing.... I'm still trying to fathom how the front runners got through Ft. Augustus before I was out of the peat bog. That fact just blows my mind! Something funny to me was that I rode down the Devils Staircase not knowing that's what it was. From all the build-up, I'd expected something more or less unridable. At least I rode something. :-)

Hats off to everyone (finishers and non-finishers alike). I am amazed at how fast some of the people finished it but I have to say that I'm even more amazed by the people who stuck with it, no matter what to finish. Those people are the ones that I really take my hat off to.

I'm finally starting to feel like a human being after the cold/flu thing that hit me on day one and took me out on day 2. In fact, I'm trying to figure out if there's a week or so I can fly back over and go for attempt #2... er, a complete ITT. How does the weather change in that part of the world over the course of the summer? Maybe more importantly, is there a time of the year that I DON'T want to do it, other than winter?