Notes from the start

On the evening of the first day, Kent is pretty much right in the middle of the pack, which is exactly what he expected. He was very eager to start. There's a lot of climbing in the first/new/Canadian section. (The entire route is 200,000 feet of climbing.)

I do want to remind everyone that Kent is on a single speed. Even if he's as successful as he hopes, he's not going to ever be in the lead on the leader board. I'm going to work on finding a list of single speed racers so we can set up a leader board of just those people. Meanwhile, keep an eye on him in the middle of the pack.

On the Tour Divide blog (see left hand side of the blog) they are posting as podcasts the calls in from the field. (They will not be transcribing them this year.) I'll post a permalink on this blog when Kent calls in, as Christine said, that's probably not going to be tonight.

Last night on the initial general TD podcast they had an alert about the SPOT trackers, they said that, while they are VERY accurate when on, they have an unfortunate habit of turning themselves off. So don't worry if they don't post for a few hours -- or longer than you think he should be sleeping.

Kent has ridden over 130 hard miles today. I got 24 in the city.

Hasten Slowly.

MarkPosted byMark Canizaroat7:27 PM

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Notes about the SPOT tracking system

The TD organizers keep reiterating that the SPOT trackers can accidentally turn off. Several racers appear to be still at the start. They are fairly accurate when turned on, but lack of movement should be interpenetrated as a possible SPOT failure.

When reading the webpage showing Kent's progress on the SPOT, there are only the last 50 points are displayed (numbered backwards for some bizarre reason). Fifty points can be considerably less that a full day (we're seeing on average about 70 points a day). You can check the previous pages for previous points. Unfortunately there appears to be a maximum capacity for the display -- i can't tell if it's 7 days, 350 points or 10 pages, but points from about a week ago are disappearing.

I have not been able to figure out how to download the tracking points from the SPOT page although it has been suggested that it is possible. If anyone figures that out, please let me know - it would be great to store them.

Hasten Slowly,

MarkPosted byMark Canizaroat7:30 AM

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