Tour Divide

It's only about 38 days to go now. Getting excited!

The bike is all ready.

Your gears are on backwards!

Haha!

Yeah, 32 (oval) front and 11-42 on the rear!

Going to put a 36 on the front for TD, and a new cassette, chain, tyres, brake pads, and a whole new rear wheel with an Industry 9 hub. Don't trust hope to last for 3000 miles.

What's the crankset? Stripped SLX?

Spot on. Yes.

Look really good. Still one of the best things Shimano have made.

Yeah, my middleburns died, and they were 175s, I wanted to go for shorter cranks, and had some SLX in a box from a couple of years ago in 170. So I stripped them, and now I'll probably just stick with them. Solid and reliable and surprisingly light.

On top of that, it looks just about the perfect bikepacking set up!

Yup. Cool as fuck. Jealous.
Will follow.

Need to get myself a hardtail mtb.

Bike looks great.

How are you shaping up? Feeling prepared?

Feeling pretty good, not too nervous, though a little apprehensive about bears and vast wilderness, having never been anywhere like that. Aside from that, I'm happy riding 16 hours a day, over multiple days, though doing it for 20+ days is going to hurt for anyone, and I expect it to. I did two consecutive days of 14 hours last weekend, in bad weather with more climbing per day than an average day on the divide, and I wasn't too bad for it. 270 miles and over 22,000 feet of climbing in 2 days wasn't bad on a loaded MTB I reckon. I still can't imagine how tired I'll be after doing that for 3 weeks...

All said, it's going to be an amazing experience, and I'm gonna start out with some mates from CA, and see how our pace matches, but would be great to finish with them too.

The huge lack of snow in the north west means it could be a fast year in the northern section of the route, with little snow melt, and some treacherous sections like Richmond Peak could be easier, but, it could still snow. Then the El Niño forecast is bad for New Mexico, which means rolling daily storms, and lots of incredibly gloopy mud. Which could be slow and tedious. Basically, anything could happen.

I just hope the saddle sores aren't too bad!

Not at all jealous of bike or the opportunity to fend off bears with multi-tool. Enjoy!

Hmmm....I keep forgetting the Bears.

Honey and marmalade, I believe!

I just hope the saddle sores aren't too bad!

Double up on bibshorts.
Also bepanthen works wonders I've found.

Or this, has antiseptic too. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Conotrane-Antiseptic-Cream-Irritated-Nappy/dp/B0037SBURY

I'll just leave this here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLMa5-n2OVc

CGI bears are gonna getcha!

Bike looks awesome Gabes, are you going to do a kit breakdown at some point? What did you do for power in the end? Exciting times!

good luck gabes. i'd like to do this one day...possibly walk it

Cheers.

For power I went with an Exposure Revo light and dynamo hub, which I can unplug the light and plug into a Sinewave Revolution USB voltage regulator to charge my devices/cache battery. It all works wonderfully.

Thanks. If you walk it you want to do the Continental Divide Trail, not the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

A couple rode the CDT last year. Amazing. http://www.pinkbike.com/news/the-longest-singletrack-tour-ever-continental-divide-trail-2014.html

over half a million feet of climbing. Fuck.

Yep, I'm taking two pairs of shorts, from different manufacturers, so seams are in different places. Chamois cream by the handful, and sudocrem for anti-bacterial properties and sealing. Anti-septic baby wipes to clean up every night after riding.

@JonoMarshall I'll do a kit breakdown when I'm back probably, so I can rate things for how they worked out. I'm also scared of knowing how much this has cost me.

Have you tried using sudocrem -as- chamois cream? I do that.

I want to have a go at Keith's method too:
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/riders/2006/diaries/keith/?id=keith0606

Yeah, probably will end up using sudocrem as chamois cream. One less thing to carry then.

Imagine my chamois after 20+ days!