Plesko now has the Tour Divide single speed record at 19 days. Congrats Chris!

http://slipangles.blogspot.com/2009/07/home-sweet-home.html

http://tourdivide.org/blog2009/2009_provisional_general_classification

Thanks John! I learned a lot here at BPL and the forums the past few years. Sure have come a long way from knowing nothing.

Plesko: Congrats on the record. That is a serious workout!

I just spent some time reading about it. I may have misunderstood...if you are unsupported, can you have food caches or pick up food along the way, or do you have to carry all of it from the start (which would be totally nuts)?

No caches or stashes. You are allowed to use anything publicly available to all racers (post office, bike shop, restaurants, hotel, gas stations...) and trail magic is allowed too, IE you don't have to turn down an offer of food or water from a random person but you cannot stay at a friends house or have them meet you with dinner on the trail.

While doing the CDT, I stayed at the trail angel Nita's in Pie Town and she had a photo album of everyone who has visited her. There were several photos of people doing that race. did you meet her or resupply in Pie Town? I'm guessing you missed out on the pie, huh?

I was lucky enough to get pie! I had a big lunch there after leaving Grants in the AM. I met her husband(?) but did not hang out at the toaster house, wanting to push on as far towards Beaverhead ranger station as I could get. I did stop by and drop a good tire in the hiker box, hoping someday another biker will need it and be happy to have it. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away since while worn, it was still a good 29er tire in a place very unlikely for anyone to find one. Someday I hope to go back to Pie Town with my wife, it's a cool little place. Long live the Pie-o-neer, they're incredible!

Was suprised to see this post here. I wonder how many other ultralight bike gram weenies are on BPL. I've hesitated to post some of my ultralight goods here for the fear they'd be labeled "off topic".

I wish there were a biking specific forum here.

"I wish there were a biking specific forum here."

There is a chaff forum where anything goes. You should feel comfortable posting there any of your UL biking goods, or any other topic in which you have interest! And I would think no one would have an issue with such discussion in this forum, devoted to other activities not specifically hiking or camping.

Edited by idester on 01/04/2010 08:42:29 MST.

There's a lot of crossover and I second the notion that you should feel encouraged to share cycling tips, tricks and questions. FWIW the first titanium anything I owned was for my bike, and that preceded the precious stuff sneaking into backpacking gear by at least a decade. They've also been well ahead of the curve in fabrics, hydration, sunglasses, electronics, etc.

Cheers,

Rick

"the first titanium anything I owned was for my bike"

+1. Carbon fiber too.