Sunday, March 20, 2011

David Gieger is rad.

Earlier today I came across a link to a great web application developed by a guy who toured the Great Divide route last summer. Its basically just a map with the Tour Divide .gpx track on it. You select any two points along the entire route and it automatically shows you an elevation profile of that segment. I'm sure that there are lots of gifted folks out there who think this sounds pretty straightforward, but it appears almost magical to a barely literate technophobe like myself. Check it out here. Guy's write up of his Great Divide tour is here.

This year's Tour Divide hopefuls are probably already aware of this via the bikepacking forums (where I found it), but I thought I'd throw it up here for the benefit of my legions of followers. Its pretty cool, and should provide me with a nice alternative to obsessively checking Donald Glover's twitter feed during down time at work.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Junk in the Trunk

It's going to be a while before it warms up enough for me to fully test out the sleep system and clothing that I intend to take on the Divide. However, I think that I have the apparel choices pretty well figured out, enough so that it seemed worthwhile to pack everything up in my seatbag and weigh it out. Here is where I am at as of right now:



The bag contains the following:

Western Mountaineering Highlite sleeping bag
Montbell down vest
Cutter eVent rain jacket
Ground Effect 3/4 length rain pants
Bellweather arm and leg warmers
Smartwool midweight socks
Ibex wool long sleeve baselayer
Smartwool beanie
Neoprene toe covers

I still need to purchase some rain mittens and organize everything in a few small stuffsacks. Even after these additions I should be just barely above four pounds. There is still enough capacity in the bag that I could potentially pack in another component of my sleeping system (I want to minimize the amount of crap I have strapped to my handlebars as much as possible).

Although there are three months to second guess myself and change things, I suspect that this will be pretty close to what I have with me when I leave Banff. I'm eagerly awaiting the warmer weather and the chance to further test out and refine my gear.