Tour Divide

Gabes, you have been putting in the miles in preparation. I am jealous but not in equal measures, it looks like an amazing challenge, but at the same time a serious amount of hurt. I think you will enjoy it.

Epic!!! How cool!!!!!! Good fucking luck! Excited.

That bare bones 200 looks good too. Need to get into mountain bike enduro stuff really.

Have a look at SMP saddles. I can't rate mine enough, I have had no issues with it. No numbness, no prostate pain. No sores.

SMP saddles are fucking ace, best to go for the padded one for off roading, even when touring

I'm waiting for my SMP TRK to arrived to test it out on the MTB to see if that's enough, they're like £35.

Fucking jealous, seriously, I kept saying I must do this, but kept delaying it, 2016 maybe?

@edscoble Interesting on the saddles. I'm waiting for one from a project I backed on Indigogo, Morgaw, elastomer supported saddle. Should be interesting, but could also be crap, we'll see. If that fails, I'll look at the SMP saddles. I have something similar already on the road bike, which I don't ride much, so going to swap that onto the 29er for the time being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvN1_ja8_Og

Really good work......something I'd love to have the balls/legs to do. Good luck with the bear avoidance.....that scares me, I'm not gonna lie!

I'm pretty scared too, had lots of dreams about bears since I decided to do it.

I will be carrying bear bangers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsBUJh9Mm-s

Ha!
Sounds like a porn site....'bear bangers.com'

So hamazing. I wish you the very best of luck!

Weirdly, I wouldn't worry too much about fit and comfort. After that many miles off road, the bike is going to make you into whatever shape it wants you to be in, whether it fits or not! I also noticed a lot of people appear to be doing it on stuff that doesn't exactly look tip top!

Spending a shit ton of money on something like this would take the shine off it, for me. It's a bike ride after all! Adventure!

You're going to have an amazing time.

Yeah, there's some janky looking bikes. Like Cleaverbikes dude, it got him to the end, but looked like a heap of junk!

I'm gonna have as good a kit as I can afford, but seeing as I'm short of work/income recently, it's going to be tight. Once I'm out there, that won't matter anyway. And you're right about fit. I've had a bike fit done on a course at The Bicycle Academy, which was very useful, and at least I understand fit better, and can mitigate some small issues. After 6 days, I'm going to hurt whatever though. I just hope I don't get arse blisters!

excellent stuff gabes. look forward to following your journey dude.

I've just booked the flights. Landing in Calgary a couple of days before the Grand Depart, then out of Phoenix one month later. I can always bring the flights forward if I finish faster.

Anxious is an understatement.

Got enough days to sort out jetlag before you set off? Or are you planning to be wrecked enough for jetlag to not matter anymore?

I have 2 nights before the depart, after which, I reckon on sleeping not much more than 5-6 hours a night for 3 weeks!

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Time in the saddle beforehand as well as the best cleanliness you can manage during the ride will help avoid arse issues but with that much off road you're gonna have some unwanted anal pounding ;)

Make sure you keep us up to date - it'll make recalling wtf actually happened for you much easier too. I presume we can track you during the race?

Oh yeah, I'm aware of this. I did south downs double with the wrong saddle, 26 hours, and large arse blisters later, I've changed saddles, and never ride with cream now, and it's all turning leathery! But even with that, my mate who did it this year had bad blistering. Every night, wipe down with baby wipes, sleep with shorts down around ankles if you're camping out, and let it breathe. Lots of sudocream. In my mate's words "It only hurts in the morning, until the blisters burst".

Ew.

@hippy yeah man, you can watch the blue dots on trackleaders, everyone will have SPOT trackers on them. I'll be checking in when I can, either here, on instagram or whatever. Reception is pretty rare (i think over 80% is out of mobile range).

I had to put knicks over my skinsuit during the recent 24hr because I'd started with existing abrasions from a wet training ride the previous week. That's a neat trick if you get stuck without cream or in pain - double shorting :)

Yeah, I'll be carry two pairs of shorts, different brands, so the seams are in different places, so if one starts rubbing, I can swap, and if it gets really bad, I can double short!

You recent world cup win is fucking mind-bending. Congrats!

Groovy. What are the race dates over?

On road - much comfier. I only have to last one night and no fuckin' tents either! :D

Grand Depart is Friday 12th, the record is 15 days officially (Jay Petervary) but Mike Hall did it in 14 days in 2013 (but had to detour around forest fire so DQ'd).

I'll be very happy with sub 20 days. But if it takes 27, so be it.

I think you should do TransAm, you could beat Mike Halls 17 days. Tempted by that kinda racing?

Is it on or off-road? I get too confused with TransStuff. I haven't ridden off-road properly since a team 24hr enduro 10 years ago in Oz.