Ultracycling

I wonder what they are up to? Both dangling a bit off route at the moment.

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The webcam skinny tweeted:

Yikes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkFP0VwpPRY

No idea what happened to Jay's bike, but last year in a gravel race, I was riding behind a guy who had his through axle fail somehow, it just didn't hold the thing together anymore, the lever had dropped and the distance between the cassette and dropout was varying and axle sliding in the hub.

This race has all the twists.
so if skinny has made the safe and sensible call to sit out the storm, wtf has sofiane done? It looks like he has gone higher than the route, in the middle of nowhere, in a blizzard. Hope he is OK. The fact that he has gone off route, likely because he can't see the track, means his strategy isn't working.

What happens when it stops showing, 100km(or whatever is left) sprint to win?

Looks like jay isn't out of this yet!

Interesting (for me) to see the route goes through the middle of Verona, following similar route to what I did in tcr 2016. City centre has rough cobbles which were hard work on my 25s!

so if skinny has made the safe and sensible call to sit out the storm, wtf has sofiane done?

That's the big Q now, is it safe to carry on? It's a real shame Jay P is back due to a mechanical - this is the kind of moment in a race where he's got all the experience needed to really test others. He's seen it all before in the TDR for example, or SRMR (and Sofiane has a 16 day rookie TDR run under his belt).

Rooting for James, more so for bringing pretty much a road bike to this event ... have to say though, hat of to Sofiane's bold move and I hope it doesn't backfire on him.

Meanwhile.....

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Sofiane has deviated from the route again, though. I'm curious how strict the organization is going to be.

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SRMR

Yes, shame Jay isn't here when we dotwatchers need him to make our entertainment complete!
I remember he got through the blizzard on the high pass on srmr when others couldn't cope

Both JH and SS have been off-route now, it's an interesting point. James tweeted about having a wrong route on his GPS. Both have back-tracked in places to correct errors so it seems odd that SS would carry on past a wrong turn. Speculating that he's in get-through-it mode and realises the tactic hasn't worked out.

James is moving again and the weather seems to have cleared. Sofiane had a break and is moving around the yard again. 13km between them, but Sofiane had to walk that.

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Interesting to see what happens re. the routing.

Skinny’s detour probably offered an advantage but he backtracked and corrected costing him time overall.

Sofiane clearly looks to have deviated from the course a couple of times in the snow, but I don’t know how strict it is reasonable to be in those circumstances. The path would have been obscured and he was probably just walking/surviving and neither look like they gave an advantage.

Rooting for skinny but the time is running out.

So are they actually going over that ridge on paths away from roads? Blimey.

I didn't realise they did that even so high up in the mountains.

Hike a bike through the snow

There was an off-route at ~764km that wasn't backtracked though his tweet said his GPS file showed the right route was taken. It didn't look like he took an advantageous route- went down a steep track, off road on a light drop bar bike.. maybe in the dark? The route shown on trackleaders was heading off the hill also. Inconsequential would be my guess.

I'm not sure how organisers look at this but you'd hope it was based on rider intent and outcome (ie genuine + no consequence here) rather than anything too black and white. Conditions obscuring the track is an interesting Q. I suppose you have to make a call on safety as well as ability to stay on-route.

Has skinny won this yet?

This will be a good finish. Lets hope they stay upright and puncture free. Would be a horrible way to lose.

So tense... skinny closing in but still 30minutes between them with 50k (one big climb and descent) to go.

No idea what it’s based on but trackleaders estimating a 22:17 finish for Sofiane and 22:37 finish for James. I hope James has included some running in his training!!

Stop taking photos and get a move on!!

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Should have brought the 29’er

James seems to have got quite close to Sofiane on the lower slopes, where presumably there wasn't as much, if any, snow, but now Sofiane again has 6km in hand. I'm completely unclear as to how their various detours will factor into the end result, though.

James' tracker updates much less frequently. Every 10 minutes I think,

I think that the increasing gap is due to skinny’s gps not updating recently. Skinny’s last update was 35 mins ago compared to 5 for Sofiane.

Skinny still closing in I think.

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