The Fastest Bikes of the Tour Divide Ultra Race (4,300km Non-Stop)

It's been fascinating to see how Tour Divide bikes have changed over the years, and watch the distances-per-day increase! It's hard not to think they are both correlated, but there are many factors at play. 🏆 Here are tubeless sealant and aero bars articles that I referenced in the video: 🛞 www.cyclingabout.com/best-tubeless-sealant-for-gra… 🛩 www.cyclingabout.com/bikepacking-aero-bars-comfort…

Two videos in a week? Is this what cycling christmas feels like?

Dylan Johnson took 10th place at the 200 mile Unbound Gravel Race using 2.2 Continental Race King XC tires and a Lauf suspension fork. Maybe he took some lesson from the Tour Divide racers. Check out his Youtube channel where he goes over his build.

This is terrific, answering many questions I've been having on how to optimize bikepacking and touring setups. Thanks for pulling it together and for including some of the more subtle choices. For example, the choice to use a dynamo vs fast charging batteries. Very well done, just like the rest of your channel.

Thanks for the detailed information and data, much appreciated since I have a lot of gear upgrades and choices to make, planning for my first ultra next year! I’m not competing and just want to finish the race so according to the data I don’t need a carbon frame bike, you just save me a lot of money 😂 thanks 🙏🏻

I know you have done a lot of great analysis on bike and gear weight. It would be interesting to look at the whole race pack and see if bike weight and gear weight correlate to overall speed or completion rates. I have a feeling that for this type race with steep long climbs at altitude a 21lbs (Trek SuperCaliber) bike vs a 35lbs (Priority Pinion) bike is a MASSIVE HUGE difference. So much more time is spent at slow speed climbing vs for most tests I have seen online in easy rolling terrain. My own perception is that as it gets steeper and longer, bike and gear weight start to multipy and the weight penalty goes up sort of like areo and speed. If nothing else, the mental toll of perceived effort/fatigue adds add up over hour+ climbs vs pure watt calculations. A small percentage of extra effort over a personal daily max set point at the end of a long day can impact recovery more than pure watt calculations and then the daily decline strarts accelerating.

Fantastic video. Thanks for the insights.

Nicely done and thank you.

Thank you very much for this in-depth analysis. Great voice over as always.

A great and informative, video, thank you.

your videos are so cool! Thanks :)

Excellent synopsis!

THE metadata man. Thanks

Need to collect data of conditioning regimen, prep diet and match diet, these factors constitute 50 percent of the battle imho.

Do a review of Pinion and Rohloff based gravel bikes with drop bars please 😊

I’ve tried a Brooks C17 over a weekend, the damage it caused to my sitbones area took 2 years to recover. The Infinity seat is difficult to adjust correctly but once adjusted, it is fantastic. The only saddle I’ve found I can seat on more than 3 days without pain, Dr Vince now makes a synthetic version which is best for bikepacking as the leather version requires lots of maintenance.

Infinity saddle user here, the 'solid' E1X. I've been riding recumbent bikes on the road for 20+ years; they're comfy and potentially faster. I kept dabbling with my mt bike occasionally. A few years ago I got a CX bike to try out 'gravel', and I was hooked. But not on the seat. From friends in ultracycling (RAAM, RAW, RAO, 508, etc) I knew of the Infinity saddle, and also figured I had a way to resell it if it didn't work for me. After trying 6-7 saddles it was just another one to try. But this one worked, and worked so well. First few rides were great, and I went longer than I had been. Moved that saddle to my custom steel gravel bike a year later. A bit after that put another one on my new 130mm full sus mt bike. And we added one on my partner's Specialized e-bike; she'd gone thru 3-4 saddles herself with no luck, also having come over from years on the recumbent.

I tried the Infinity saddle E1X, unfortunately it didn't work for me and I ended up going for the Brooks C13 Carbon. I hear good things about the Infinity saddle for other people and they don't use padded shorts at all either.

Love a good bike nerding out video 🤓

I ride an infinity seat, and I have to say it affects my performance in unexpected ways. Put simply, almost anytime I stop somewhere, someone will eventually ask about it, and we spend about 5-10 minutes talking about it. That slows me down, but I don't race, so that's not a problem! 🤣 The leather and padding.started falling off mine and I ended up taking it off completely, exposing the naked plastic core. Overall the leather and padding are very minimal and do not strongly affect the ride of comfort. I mentioned this to the infinity staff in an email a few weeks ago and they said that the original model didn't have the leather or padding, but they found they sold more when they added it. The naked option is not available on their website, but they will sell it to you if you request it. I prefer it. No having to worry if it gets wet while leaving the bike outside in the rain. But yeah, I like it a lot. It's a comfortable seat and good for long distances if it works for you. The downside is that it's hard to test one out without buying it first.