Allegaert leading, Mike Hall close behind and both are ahead of the next bunch which includes the leading lady Sarah Hammond.

Durian rider is out but Cycling Mavern going strong.

Anyone else following?

https://indianpacificwheelrace.maprogress.com/?embed=yes

Yes, been following since it started. Stunning distance covered in the first two days.

Stu Edwards representing Bottles & Chains. Go man, go.

Yes! Enjoyed the build up and now the social media coming out of it.
Great stuff!

yeap. following Joe Donnelly from Shropshire. should be hitting 1000km today. total legend.

as a Belgian I say
GO Kristof go 🙂
the man is a machine

is it wrong that I find the fact that durianrider has dropped out already amusing?

Absolutely not, maybe he ran out of bananas already.

Definitely rooting for Mike hall, only catching it in fits and bursts at the moment. Will be good to see the race reports at the end

Following on facebook. completely insane the distance covered in two days. I can’t decide whether the in race interviews are brilliant or intrusive.

The race interviewer seems to love cutting people off and randomly interupting

Kristoff is just a machine although Mike has been tweeting he isn’t feeling all that good, might ride himself into form though

Felt bad for Jessie Carlson to have to drop out so soon from his own race

Sarah Hammond is doing awesome

having ridden some of the route i’m in awe of their mental fortitude as well as their athletic ability, the second half of the route is much hillier so be interesting to see how it plays out

Cycling Maven is a legend, he doesn’t even ride massive distances regularly like Harley does and he’s giving it a damn good go. I can only imagine the hurt they are in, even the slowest guy in that race is a hero to me, it’s just brutal.

Yes, Frank Proud. He also has the Transcontinental and the PBP on his palmares. And a thoroughly nice chap, too.

They’re all nutters. But in a good way mostly.
Takes a bit of fishing around twitter, instagram and facebook, but there are a few interesting livestreams, plus bits from the rapha or curve guys. The weather looked dreadful, while I was sat at my desk trying to find the motivation for going for a quick blat knowing that I’d have to wash the bike after.

Have they updated the rider list on the tracker yet? Was only showing 1 scratched, plus the non-starter(s) were removed before the start, but I think there must be more than 10 out by now?

A few pre-start injuries, plus at least 2 others with blown knees (although one is mad as a box of frogs and carrying on one legged)

he doesn’t even ride massive distances regularly like Harley does

Given Durianrider’s training in Feb appears to have been, by his own admittance, not riding much and trying to put on weight I think there’s a chance he overdid not riding (for some reason he reckoned being less fit was better than being fit for ultra-endurance races). Given the amount of gob-shite stuff flowing from him and his acolytes in recent months it’s highly amusing he was one of the first to go and he wasn’t even at the sharp end unlike Jesse Carlsson. It’s not that I doubt he COULD have finished it, I just think he was utterly unprepared for how quick the quick people were going to be.

Maven seems to be plodding along nicely and his sidekick Rhino looks like he might well drop out as he has hurt his knee and had a very slow day.

It’s interesting how the format of the fixed route seems to be creating a real esprit de corps amongst the riders where something like the Transcontinental allows a lot of flexibility so there’s less chance, even at an early stage, of riders bunking in together etc.

Allegaert is an utter machine! Is this the first time he and Hall have gone head to head? Really want to see Mike Hall do well, although he’s sounding pretty pissed off at the moment, more so than usual. I don’t think anyone is surprised at Durianrider pulling out, but day one??

Is this the first time he and Hall have gone head to head?

Yep. From something on Instagram or Youtube it sounds like Mike Hall only built this bike up just before leaving the UK so he’s modifying it as he goes. Still, he’s the only person in touch with Allegaert so he’s obviously not THAT out of sorts.

There’s an interview with Jesse on bikepacker.com where he says that Kristof and Mike have basically been winning everything between them but have never raced head to head so he set about getting them, and other fast riders, to do the race.

Note that the above video is about half an hour long.

You never really know who’s had sleep and who needs to stop but the tracker is showing Mike just 20k behind Kristoff now, it was 100k earlier today.

There both 100k+ ahead of the followers.

edit: closer view of the tracker it looks like Kristoff stopped presumably for some sleep so now has an advantage.

Wilburt – check the timing of the updates from the tracker. Last time I did, Mike had checked in at 3:30pm, Kristoff was 1:27pm or something.

Yeh, looks like Kirstoff got a few hours sleep and now Mike is getting some rest

Durianrider is putting out some OK videos now of race coverage

Some poor guy broke his collar bone on the way to the start, what a shitter

Durianrider had a bad build up, an off towing a bike on his leccy Specialized and then got knocked off by a car a couple of days later

Fascinating… what’s a rough estimate for how long it’s going to take the fast riders to complete this?

My best guess at current pace would be 11-12 days but more likely 12ish given the mountains are to come.

Will be trying to keep an eye on this, and rooting for Mike. He’s definitely good at intricate planning and playing the long game, so i hope he’s not too worried about being 100km behind at the moment. He should know better than to worry about being in the lead at this stage, and may pull something out of the bag later in the race. Either way it will probably be very close!

Harley spouts loads of crap but let’s face it if he’s on form he would have been at the front with those guys, it’s not like he’s a stranger to those kilometers. If he’d kept his mouth shut a bit before hand and not posted vlogs calling pros soft and laughing at others saying they were underestimating the race then he wouldn’t be getting half as much stick as he’s getting. Lots of people wanted him to fail as much as succeed.
Can’t believe rhino is still going with 1 leg, that guy is hilarious and as mad as a bag of rats.

I remember clicking on one of durianriders youtube videos the day before the race and he was going on about the race and mtfu, minimal sleeping during the race etc. Then on the first day he stopped for 12 hours and then probably realised he had no chance against the big hitters.

Would have been much better for him to be more humble as mavern has been. No expectations on him and a finish would be excellent.

The leaders are going really well. Impressed with sarah hammond as well atm.

Durian riders doing a better job providing commentary than he did on riding, he’s posted a clip of him chatting to a guy(missed his name) who’s doing quite well riding what looks like an old street bike, flat shoes very upright clearly bonkers but smashing the miles out.

This is great
https://www.facebook.com/IndianPacificWheelRace/videos/405449113163812/

Kristoff still leading @2230km Mike close behind @2190km
Sarah Hammond now in third place @2000km

Not bad for 4.5 days riding!

Think Kristoff has managed a chunk more sleep than Mike

Harley spouts loads of crap but let’s face it if he’s on form he would have been at the front with those guys, it’s not like he’s a stranger to those kilometers.

I doubt he’d have been at the front. I don’t know if you saw his setup but he looked like he was touring not racing (panniers, speaker on the bars, loads of random camping equipment). As I said, I don’t doubt he could complete the course but I suspect he’d have been midfield at best but, obviously, we’ll never know.

Just checked the graphs as Kristof approaches 3000Km. Neither he nor Mike have stopped for more than an hour in over two days 😮 They both had a five hour stop 1000Km and 800Km ago respectfully.

I was going to say it’ll be a case of who blinks first but in the state they must be in blinking might not be the best idea 🙄

Seems to be getting closer and staying that way between the top two…

Looks like they have snow later in the week forecast for the front runners

Kristoff still proving sleep is optional

Can’t believe juju has gone back to the start and started again after receiving medical treatment

Juliana hasn’t had much luck in this race, first the allergic reaction, then multiple punctures, patch failures and tube fails. She got saved by a motorist and a can if Tyre weld earlier.

Mike has now caught and passed Kristof but obviously it’s a pretty slim margin. Who knows though, it might be Mike’s tactics working well or it might be Kristof is taking the mountains a bit easier

Just passed these good people, and didn’t stop for a cold one 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/brightbrewery/

Been following this on Twitter.

Amazing how close it is after such a long distance

mikewsmith – Member
Just passed these good people, and didn’t stop for a cold one
https://www.instagram.com/brightbrewery/

and this one today as well in Beechworth – all a bit slack and possibly un-australian 😀

https://bridgeroadbrewers.com.au/