Tour Divide

I would think most people get picked up. Friends/family or Jeffery in Hachita. He can take you to El Paso for flights, Lordsburg/Silver City for busses. If you need to get to Phoenix, that's a bit much for him, as it's a 600 mile round trip.

My contingency was to ride to phoenix if I missed my cousin, but the heat, and being bored of riding, made me rush to make sure I got a lift. I didn't fancy 300 miles of desert highway after the race.

Demons, lots. Hallucinations, lots. Nodded off on the bike a few times too.

Demons, lots. Hallucinations, lots.

If you don't mind me asking what type of things?

lights, flashes, weird colours. Some weird perspective distortions, stuff like that. No imaginary beasts or anything like that.

After I saw a mountain lion in southern Colorado, I did get pretty paranoid about big cats, much more than I was about bears. Going over Polvadera Mesa, which was my worst day, not enough water, 45º heat, no sleep, I was imagining all sorts of animals, tree stumps or logs would appear to be cats, marks in the sand would appear to be paw prints. Fuck, that day was horrible.

In terms of Demons, well, it's a very personal thing, and it was a very personal journey. So much free time for your mind. I try to keep my mind pretty empty when I ride, much like meditation, then the important stuff comes to the surface. I haven't written about my race as so much stuff came up. I can say I am incredibly glad I did it, it changed my outlook on a lot of stuff, made me much more confident, and made me try to approach things without any expectations. Not saying this would be the case for everyone, but me, yes.

Thanks, I did wonder if it would be full on imaginary beasts or just subtle distortions/imagining things. I think the most I've done is about 28 hours but that was on a rather relaxed Dynamo so not really in your league!

I see lightning flashes out of the corner of my eyes. I always assumed it was actually lightning but it's happened too often and on too many clear days/nights to actually be lightning. Also, no thunder.

It's your Garmin rebooting.

(Actually happened to me on PBP just after leaving one of the controls [Loudeac I think]. Edge 705 battery was dead, USB battery pack was all but dead but had just enough power for the Edge 705 to try and turn on, flash of white from the screen and then it would turn off, 30 seconds later it would do it again. I was hunting round for the person riding with a flashing front light ready to kill them. Took me 30 mins in my fucked state to work out what it was.)

Could be retinal detachment x_x

Ha! So true.

Nah, I only get that when masturbating furiously.

66.2 miles to go for Mike. 5 hours or so?

30.5mi...

Looks good to scrape in under 14 days...

7.7 miles

Bouncing marker. He's done.

And he's done! 13days 22 hours and 51 minutes! Half a day faster than the previous record

Big kudos

I'm excited to see what Guy will do.

18d 6h

Very good huh.

That's a fantastic time - he'll be really chuffed.
How do you recover - how long do you recover from something like that I wonder ?

Took me about 6 months to fully recover, as in, not feeling tired as soon as I got on the bike. And took about 11 months to put on the 10kg I lost during the race...

Chris Plesko's singlespeed setup:http://bikepackersmagazine.com/readers-rig-chris-plesko-record-setting-singlespeed-ride/

He's also posted a little "why singlespeed" thing: http://slipangles.blogspot.co.uk/

tl;dr - 32x16

32x16

OG

With all the bike shenanigans going on I was joking (last night?) to the missus that I should get the On-One Inbred out and ride the TCR on that.

Just read this thread Gabes. Well done! and thank you for inspiring me to attempt this next year.

Having now done the divide @gabes . . . What is your opinion on wheel size/tyre width for the divide route. . .
Would you still choose a regular 29er wheel/tyre of between 2.1"-2.4" over 27.5+ of 2.8"-3", or even 29+ ?
That's with regards to a fully rigid setup still.
Do you think the extra cushioning/comfort of plus size tyres outweighs the extra weight over that kind of distance?

Did you see the video of Mike talking about his Divide tyres? He ran bigger ones for his last, record-breaking ride. I think 27.5+ but will see if I can find the video.