Tour Divide

Will work out nicely, UB wins, Mike's solo record remains.

Incredible by Ulrich as a rookie. Phenomenal performance.

Next year will we see him come back and go for the record, along with Sofiane and Justinas maybe?

Huge rides from them given the conditions this year.

Uba to finish soon.

Hope so!
Justinas was a bit quicker, but his bike has fallen apart a lot.
Now let's get the pictures of them looking like shit at the finish 😆

his bike has fallen apart a lot.

#fuckingsram

For the last couple days Justinas has been riding with a pedal that detached from its spindle. Also, he’s had to resort to getting off his bike and pushing the derailleur into a usable gear any time he needs to change gears. It’s not a dead battery, it just quit working.

wow well done justinas.

from https://bikepacking.com/plog/2023-tour-divide-recap-part-2/

1 Attachment

Bouncing dot, what a legend Uba

2nd fastest time on record.

So, if there's an edition with better weather he'd likely beat Mike's time and same goes for Justinas if he didn't break everything :)

Ulrich not sounding like he would be back next year. Says he would prefer to do different route, Baja Divide or SRMR or something.

Fair enough. He's in a position to win stuff, so going around and winning everything seems like a totally reasonable modus operandi. Records can be taken off you, wins (unless you're Lance) can't.

Lael in as first female. 13th overall I think. Alexandera is ahead of her own record currently. Some strong women all bunched together this year. Female winner of RAAM in last few days too.

Adrian on the sweet fixeh finished a few days ago.

1 Attachment

There's a lovely one of him singing a song about mexico one his way to the finish too which I'll try and find. What a ride. 37/40mm tyres on 72" up and down proper mountains off road for 2700 miles still blows my mind.

So cool!

72" up and down proper mountains off road

Yeah, that is mighty impressive. Chapeau to him!

https://velo.outsideonline.com/gravel/gravel-racing/the-tour-de-france-vs-tour-divide-which-is-harder/

Honestly thought he had scratched early on. The comment about lack of mobile signal is interesting. Wonder if he comes back, he had the pace, but not the experience or luck this time.

I found that racing TransAm. There's fuck all signal in the mountains and it's patchy the rest of the route too. I was using Three SIM.

Just imagined that it kind of said it on the tin. If something breaks you might expect to not have signal and should have plan b?

Sure, that's why I carry everything I think I'll need to keep going (and my zero scratches up until Transiberica 2021). But he's a former pro, so presumably hasn't had to fend for himself much in the outdoors. I'm constantly amazed at what people think they can get away with at the start of races - either through ignorance of the ride ahead or some kind of weight weenie lunacy. I get it, if you're going all in for the win you might leave stuff out. But I'm not flying all the way to the USA to quit a race on day 3 because something broke.

https://www.followmychallenge.com/live/lachlanmorton/gdmbr-fkt/?50.165774,-115.163772,6.79

Lachlan going after Mikes record. Made a strong start

I didn’t think he was? Saw on BearBones forum that he’s got a film crew with him and he will interact with them so won’t be unsupported?

I hate this shit. One of those "FKT but we filmed it and blah blah"

It's like the sub 2hr marathon that sort of happened but wasn't a record because, you know, rules and shit.

Hate is too strong. I enjoy the films but it seems like a cop out to "beat" some record but under different conditions. Why even mention Mike if you're doing something else?

He can't. There are diversions in place.

Also, I'd argue he shouldn't. But hey ho.