Personally I’m giving the beer to bridge road but bright is edging it on pizza and ambiance… I’d have be stopping (well I did last week)

Kristoff had his first long sleep in days last night which let Mike catch up, guess it will be a battle of who can not sleep to Sydney now

For some perspective it’s probably 14-16hrs driving the way they are going to Sydney not quite the home straight yet and a couple of decent sets if hills to cross.

Only 25 km seperate them though. Still over 800km to go

Martin Cox just tweeted:

900km left @Indi_Pac, mike has a slender lead,& Kristof has just rested. Will they stop again (mins/hrs?) this is going to be savage!

I love that there’s debate over whether some people with that sort of mileage left to do will decide to stop again before the end.

They’re cyclists, but not like the rest of us.

Theres a 1200m climb in 100km, I expect they’ll aim to get over that, get some rest, then do the remainder in one (600km!) effort.

I think the point is also this could be one of the most unpredictable section the open sections are very open and there will be some brutal winds, the temperature ranges were between single digits and 35c with massive storms last week.

If the spot tracker is accurate, they are literally both together at the moment. Intriguing.

Shows Allegaert 1km ahead now. 🙁

Edit – Hall 4km ahead…

The SPOTs only update every ten minutes so if the different units are updating at different times then it will appear as if they are continually leap-frogging each other. They could be riding together for all we know.

Their trackers won’t be in sync so it’s very difficult to tell who is in front, or whether they are leap frogging each other.

Has this been Mike’s plan all along?

turn on the prediction thing, that way it extrapolates where they might actually be, rather than where there were somewhere within the last 10 minutes.
showed them basically riding together when I looked earlier.

Roughly 50km until it starts getting vertical so that’ll be the test to see who’s feeling strong and who’s hanging on.

Mike’s put in a ridiculous effort with no sleep in many many hours so he won’t be able to keep it up forever!

This looks like a man who could do with some sleep!

Mike’s stopped now I imagine he’ll get a few hours sleep. Kristoff 15km ahead and just about to go up the major climb.

Sleep seems to of done kristoff the world of good

End route around Sydney looks a bit convoluted.

Do they get DQ’d if they do 5469 kms then get the last bit wrong?!?

Every photo i see of mike he looks like that 🙂

Mikes gone off route!

Mikes gone off route!

Looks like there’s a small town down that road so either he needs supplies or a kip.

Looks like a 12km round trip to the town – seems weird.

Edit: Zooming in, it looks like a sleep spot

Looks like it’s over. Kristof is 80km ahead of Mike, Mike is almost 200km ahead of Sarah who has over 100km over Kai. Kristof only has around 500km left to ride so short of a disaster for one of the top 3 I think the racing is over.

Indeed – didn’t really expect to see that gap when I woke up this morning

Fair play to Mike for pushing himself to the edge. Amazing how such a long endurance event can almost be nail bitingly tense

Mmm yes Mike didnt sound very positive, complaining he was struggling with night vision recently.

A lot can happen in 500km but Kristoff does appear to be a in good place.

Respect to them all, great event.

Does look like Mike has too much of a gap now, but fascinating it has been so close.

Both over the last major climb and a tailwind all the way to Sydney. Kristoff 350 to go, Mike 500.
Both probably due one more sleep although if either is feeling (even more) superhuman may go without.

Its 5pm here, 3am there, and Mike is on the move! Having stooped at 8pm previous night.

200km behind Kristof who stopped at 11pm local time. So will likely be on the move again soon too.

I guess both are likely to arrive Sydney some time later today (their time).

id say barring major disaster this is how itll finish.

I have just watched the video of Kristoff stopping for a chat in Canberra he looked fresher than I do after a weekend social ride.

So you could be correct.

Currently Kristof is 150km up on Mike, I suspect Kristof will stop 1 more time however for Mike to win it he would need to epically over sleep for something like 9 or 10 hours.

It has been an astonishing race to watch from the superhuman riding at the sharp end from Kristof, Mike and Sarah to the characters in the pack of Rhino, Rupert and Maven.

Man Down and its serious hope its not true 🙁

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/traffic-diversions-after-serious-incident-on-monaro-highway-20170330-gvaggs.html

Taken for a FB feed but I cannot confirm

Mike Hall, whom set the Tour Divide race record at an astonishing 13:22:50 was hit by a car and died today, while racing the Indian Pacific Wheel Race. A horrible tragedy. Our hearts are heavy at this great loss. Our prayers are with those whom knew and loved him.

🙁 not looking good. Exactly where Mikes spot is.

I really hope this isn’t true.

Oh Jesus,

I’ve known Mike for nearly twenty years, I pray this isn’t true, but unfortunately it’s not looking good.

Twitter statement from organizers (can’t link from phone) says they are cooperating with authorities. No names mentioned.

Terrible news. Brought my day to a sudden halt.

Oh no!
No words

What an awful way for such a fascinating race to end. If, as speculated it’s Mike (and given the location it seems it could only be him), its almost even more of shock and a reminder that this sort of thing can happen to anyone, even the most experienced riders in the world.

Whoever it is my thoughts and best wishes to their family and friends. And stay safe out there people.

just gutting
it’s a teary eye morning
RIP Mike

Noooo…..whoever it may be 🙁