Hola moto bros and sistas,
We have been getting a
lot of email from folks intending to attempt T1 this summer (one or two per day). Good on all of ya's! Be sure to sign the register when you visit the Tour of Idaho flagpole and have a blast. We sure do.
As much as I genuinely like correspondence my volume of email runs somewhere between 50 - 100 per day - which means that I am constantly trying to keep up. The answers to most of the questions we get asked by prospective T1 riders may be readily found in either the
route description, the
FAQ or any of the T1 trip descriptions we have on our site (all linked from the end of each feature).
We get many requests for GPS routes/tracks/etc. What we have is already on the site. I could spend the rest of my life answering questions about GPS and do absolutely nothing to make the world a better place so I gave it up for Lent and I'm sticking to it. First, other than what's loaded up on the site already, I'm not so sure that a truly complete GPS of the entire route exists. Second, GPS without having studied the maps, will likely do you more harm than good. The Tour of Idaho is not like riding 9000 laps around the valley loop in Yosemite - it's a true wilderness adventure - in the wilderness. You need to invest some sweat equity in map study up front if you want to set yourself up with a reasonable chance of success. That's why we've included 7.5 minute topos of the entire route. GPS devices are useful (we really like all of ours) but should not be used as a proxy for all route finding skill. Years of bitter experience have taught us that it's better to NOT be staring at that little arrow when a turn is coming up at speed! We suggest that GPS be used to augment, rather than substitute for finding the route.
The first time we rode the Tour, about six years ago, I used no GPS. Rather, Dan and I spend the entire winter pouring over maps in National Geographic TOPO, Google Earth and DeLorme. Heck - we even did 3D passes of the route to familiarize ourselves with what the terrain would look like. With few exceptions I had the entire route burned into my brain through map study and it made a huge difference. I also would rather look around at the scenery than spend all of my time obsession over the GPS screen.
Having said all of that folks swaps GPS routes here on the forum all of the time. If you ask, I'm sure that someone will offer one up. Just make sure that you ask them if and where they deviated from the actual Tour route.
Looking forward to this summer!!
Cheers
Martin
