Solo but on a tandem would be interesting!

Guy Martin Skips 2016 Isle of Man TT to race The Tour Divide

Fair play. Good on him.

hes also riding a big old areil in the pre65 scottish trial in the first week of may..twixt kinlochleven and fort bill

I think Mike Hall is also doing it again this year too, it was Mike that recorded a record wasn’t a record in the end due to re-routing because of fires last time? Is that right?…anyway apparently Mike is also quite good at riding a long way fairly quickly….He mentioned he was about to start training the other day in a tweet I recollect.

Should be good to follow. Great that so many Brits are entering. And what an awesome experience it will be for minipips. chapeau. I’d just lke to have a go I think! I wouldn’t be worried about how long it took me within reason..

It would be nice if we could track his progress live, d’ya think?

It’s certainly a challenge and I like the way the bloke thinks, all of us ain’t getting any younger are we…. 😕

Lets hope it goes better than James Cracknell’s attempt.

Paul Howard’s ‘Two Wheels on my Wagon’ is a good read on the event. Arguably how not to do it.

It would be nice if we could track his progress live, d’ya think?

You can. All the racers carry SPOT trackers. Spending two to three weeks watching blue dots on a screen is surprisingly exciting.

Lets hope it goes better than James Cracknell’s attempt.

That wasn’t the Tour Divide route.

Cracknell was meant to be doing the Tour Divide straight after his coast to coast triathlon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10331887
I remember because I toured the Tour Divide route that summer and was looking forward to seeing what sort of state Cracknell and Fogle would be in.

Good luck to Guy.. Pretty sure he’ll smash it.
Kinda think he’s got the right mindset to just keep plugging on..
Look forward to seeing how it pans out.

hes also riding a big old areil in the pre65 scottish trial in the first week of may..twixt kinlochleven and fort bill

& I’ll be there! 😆

Hmm, I’m not into questioning folks posts on here, but to say Paul Howard’s ride is ‘how not to do it’ is not very charitable as he did get it done, and the attrition rate on this race is close to 50%.

Paul got it done in about 26 days and took a day off to smell the roses and that makes it a darn good completion.

When you do this race, you meet loads of interesting people, see awesome sights, push through so many sections that would make mortals quit, that just to finish is far and away above what many riders can contemplate.
The feeeling of finishing and then being able to write a book on the race that helps others is simply another way to do this epic race.

I’m in again for 2016 but won’t be on the GD start -I’m heading out of Banff two days early to get the best parts of the route to myself. Its just another way of ‘how to do it’.

Inevitable but still a shame that as the race became more well known and less underground that opinions would start to blend in to rules of what counts and what doesn’t.
It’s a huge undertaking. Logistically, financially and in equal measure physically and mentally.
I think it was Aiden Harding who once said “If you’re riding it for the kudos or attention and not for yourself, you really need to have a good think about doing it at all”. Or something like that but I think that was the general sentiment.
I’m *doing it this year but almost certainly not as part of the race. I have about a week to decide.
Good luck to everybody intending to ride it. I hope you get from it what you’re looking for.
*family say do it. Inner me says something else.

Interesting topic Monksie. I agree about doing it for yourself, little else will get you through a genuinely hard effort the whole way. It’s a tough one for Guy Martin, if you’re famous how do you do something like this and keep it a fairly private experience if you want it to be? It’s supposed to be a solo challenge so I’d hope the media side of it respects that aspect for him.

The event got big years ago but that’s just the media side of it, 150 riders disperse pretty fast over the first 300-400 miles. You can ignore all that online stuff, the prep blogs and brand PR etc and the TD will still offer up a huge experience. A pretty unique one I expect. Or you can ITT any route and push yourself in the same way and never mention it online – arguably a harder thing to do mentally? There’s something about the TD though, like riding a classic TDF col. There’s history in it already if you care for it more than just the tick, I suppose it can’t stay underground and also have that history. If the original GDR is your inspiration you can recreate that on the TD, make your own rules etc. It’s a bit like climbing, plenty of scope for style and approach to come into it as well as the simple tick or TT result aspect.

It’s an interesting one this. I’ve always held up the TD as the ultimate mtb challenge, and one that I would love to do at some point. Partly for the huge physical and mental challenge, but also to see so much amazing US country. That’s why i’d probably only ever do it as a ‘just try and complete it ITT’. I agree very much with those who say it needs to be done for deeply personal reasons, and that completing 2,745 miles of riding in any time at all is an achievement.

As for Guy Martin doing it, I think it’s an interesting one. It’s a very different challenge to anything he has done before, and will test him in ways he hasn’t been before – which I suspect is why he’s doing it. Mentally, it seems like you need a depth of resilience that’s difficult to train for. I don’t doubt his physical abilities, but i’ll be interested to see how he copes with the day on day exhaustion and the attending mental fatigue. Personally, I thought Lael Wilcox’s TD rides (note the plural!) last year were the most inspiring and impressive for some time, and got little attention this side of the pond.

In my opinion, unless you’ve actually done it (Terrahawk, Jameso, Mr Colliver) then I’m pretty sure you have no idea what you’re on about. And I reckon Mr Martin has more of an idea about doing it than some keyboard warrior on here…

I was dead serious about doing it a couple of years ago, to race rather than tour. I REALLY struggled with the training for it and combined with some health issues it didn’t end up happening. What I really struggled with was the mental aspect, riding that distance every single day over and over again. I do wonder how much of that is the mental side of things, just pushing your body ignoring what its telling you.

I’ve ridden in to work every day this week, which is a 50 mile round trip. Ok, it was cold but in comparison to this it’s nothing. I’m sat here at my desk absolutely ruined unable to comprehend how you ride 3 to 4 times that distance every day for 20 days..

Sorry Flange. My comment was aimed more at lamenting the ‘event’ becoming an ‘event’ than any individual if you know what I mean?
I’m not very good on Internet forums.

Wasn’t aimed at you Monksie, in the slightest. Its certain other members of the forum who apparently know everything about everything and make sweeping statements that are very much lacking in fact.

Me personally – I clearly don’t have the minerals to compete in it (and I can’t afford the time off work to tour it). It takes a certain sort of person to race it let alone win it. I’ve been to see Mike Hall (and Ed Pickup) doing a talk about their TransAm race – when they mentioned that their preferred place to sleep was a public lav because it has a lock on the door and is warm, that told me all I need to know…

Likewise, flange – I’d hoped to do it this year, but the training isn’t happening for various reasons and it’s not something I’d undertake lightly / unless I felt I was prepared both physically and mentally.

I did 1,200km on the Camino de Santiago from Alicante to Santiago de Compostela last year (I stitched together 4 Caminos) with a good friend. We did it in 11 days, and even with company that was mentally very hard, so doing twice that distance each day, for twice as long, and (probably) on your own would be a great achievement.

Chapeau to the folks doing it, I’m envious!

I can’t remember the forum I read it on (because reading forums counts as training yeah?) but I remember some American bloke who lived in an area that was too snowy to train in. So he’d do back to back days of 12 hour turbo sessions… 12 hours. On a turbo.

I’m pretty sure there’s NOTHING in the world that could make me spend 12 hours a day on the turbo.

I thought Lael Wilcox’s TD rides (note the plural!) last year were the most inspiring and impressive for some time

Agreed, good style and amazing pace combined.

when they mentioned that their preferred place to sleep was a public lav because it has a lock on the door and is warm

100% F- that : ) Preferred in dire times maybe but probably not on an average night?

So he’d do back to back days of 12 hour turbo sessions… 12 hours. On a turbo.

I’m pretty sure there’s NOTHING in the world that could make me spend 12 hours a day on the turbo.
Nope. Pretty pointless anyway unless you need that for mental something or other.

100% F- that : ) Preferred in dire times maybe but probably not on an average night?

My understanding was that if they could find one, they’d sleep in it. Otherwise it was a tent outside. I know Mike ending up spending one night sleeping in a Post Office drop off/collect point because it was warm and had a lock. Neither sounded great to me.

Warm I get .. particularly at the effort levels of the very fastest who need the best recovery. But why the need for a lock? Then again my bivi spot standards can be pretty low in a different way, in hindsight analysis
: )

But why the need for a lock?

Bears and snakes?

So he’d do back to back days of 12 hour turbo sessions… 12 hours. On a turbo

I’m oot.

If riding alone I can imagine the td is quite a lonely affair and the scenery on the face of it seems quite boring. Mountainous fireroads! Wasn’t there a lad who went out there last summer and packed in after a week saying the countryside was boring and it just wasn’t what he was expecting. Not playing down the effort of the guys that do do it, fairplay I couldn’t give up that level of effort. But apart from the challenge of actually doing it, just as a cycle tour Europe seems much more appealing.

Hmm, I’m not into questioning folks posts on here, but to say Paul Howard’s ride is ‘how not to do it’ is not very charitable as he did get it done, and the attrition rate on this race is close to 50%.

True enough but it did seemingly represent a great failure to properly prepare. But yes, he did get it done and kudos to that.

Bears and snakes maybe, fair enough. I was thinking it was about being hillbilly-proof : ) They know what they’re doing.

If riding alone I can imagine the td is quite a lonely affair and the scenery on the face of it seems quite boring.

Lonely yes, wonderfully so, a personal challenge. Boring, for some perhaps, like anything I guess it’s based on your perspective. It’s very open and exposed in places, different appeal to Europe. It varies, slowly across a huge space. I loved it and want to ride it again over a month or so when I retire. All subjective stuff though, you either like it or not like bikeparks or road racing.

You need to be happy with your own company, as mentioned above a couple of hundred riders on the GD soon gets spread out and you only have to be five minutes in front or behind another rider for them to be out of sight, obviously a bit more timewise in the open areas of the TD.

Was chatting to someone who’d done the HT550 a couple of years ago and they didn’t see any of the other riders for four days. On the YD300 last year I was on my own for perhaps 12 hours and that’s within a fairly busy national park on a summer weekend.

That level of solitude and big spaces is what appeals to me (and why i’d rather tour it). It might take a week for the scenery to change, but that’s fine. We’re so used to highly varied but small-scale terrain in the UK, coupled with a generally high population density. The opposite of that is very appealing. I think it would reset your attention span and sense of landscape.

On the subject of Mike Hall and sleeping in public toilets: has anyone seen ‘Inspired to Ride’ yet, and is it good?

I have – it was very good. It doesn’t show much of Ed Pickup and that Julia lass comes across as a bit…stroppy but its well worth a watch.

(Even though its edited/filmed by Mike ‘super emotional’ whateverhisnameis from the RidetheDivide film…)

Ah, good! I was planning to download it at some point. I know what you mean about Mike Dion, I liked Ride the Divide when he wasn’t crying or talking about a ‘trail quest’, and the trailer for this one looks good.

They should do one for the Transcontinental next…

There is a rumor that may be the case Faustus

I’ve ridden in to work every day this week, which is a 50 mile round trip. Ok, it was cold but in comparison to this it’s nothing. I’m sat here at my desk absolutely ruined unable to comprehend how you ride 3 to 4 times that distance every day for 20 days..

You’ve also done 5 full days at work, which you don’t have to do while riding the TD 🙂

Warming up for TDR with the Strathpuffer

. Guy Martin came 35th in the solo category, but he did also spent the three days immediately before Strathpuffer riding his bike up there from Lincolnshire! We don’t know if he rode back, but he did grab a few hours sleep mid race.

That look is focused*!!!

*(tired, pooped, sleepy may well apply)

Whens his Rourke frame coming out to play?

From my 3 weeks cycling the Divide last summer, I think you can only succeed if like jameso you can put your head down anywhere and sleep, if you can’t (like myself) you don’t recover and your performance declines.

The other key thing is being happy eating crappy and unhealthy food. If you like to eat well and healthy the divide is a real culture shock.

I look forward to tracking his progress and seeing how he gets on

Is he still doing this? Just noticed his name doesn’t appear on the tracker website

http://trackleaders.com/tourdivide16

Mike Hall isn’t on there either. I’m guessing that they’re all the people who have checked in prior to the start. There’s probably a few more to crop up between now and Friday.

He might not have switched his tracker on yet, his name is on the start list though.
Possible sighting here