I once booked a 10-day work trip in the best hotel I could find in a rural area...which happened to be a Day's Inn. Pictures looked great one the website so I was hopeful.

Now I am not saying they did this, but to this day I think they stole pictures from another hotel and put on their website. Place was like something out of a bad movie.
--Potholes in the parking lot.
--Pool was half-filled and green.
--Hotel lobby had a haze of cigarette that was beyond description.
--The police were at the front desk when I checked in. Apparently, they were evicting a non-paying guest.
--When I opened the room door, there was a puff of dust from the floor. It didn't look like anyone had stayed in there for weeks.

Oddly enough, it had a very updated and sparkling clean bathroom. To this day that still makes no sense. I did manage to find something 40 miles farther away and was able to book there for the rest of the trip, so I checked out the next morning.

I was in that area a couple of years later and drove by and the place was closed/abandoned. Found a news article on it and I was shocked, just shocked, to find out people had been cooking meth in rooms.

Crazy about the wheel, and dangerous. Was this something that got overlooked pre race or did the amount of riding so far in the race do it?

Less **** to break/fix. Maybe he even carries extra sprocket sizes to regear for uphills, etc

Ace - Everything of spc's was money prior to event. Close to 200 miles of extremely rough gravel riding (evidently they are using sections of this thing that have not seen action in years) caused the wheel to get wacky as well as shred a new tubeless tire specifically designed for rough gravel.

@don - the dude winning this thing broke the trans am record a few years back and is big time

Fewer mechanical failures was my thought, too. I'm not hip to options for quick changing cassettes, but that sounds like a huge PITA.

Obviously had to repair / clean up after the double murder / suicide from the week before.

Wife and I did an Atlantic Canada trip last year with packaged pre-booked hotels along the way. All of them were fine / classy enuf for the jorts wearing crowd except for the one in Moncton, NB, which looked a lot like the one you described. My fave part was their swimming pool, where from the bottom floor you had to venture down these dungeon steps into this cement basement area where the pool was entombed. When I got down there, I literally carefully peered around and quietly asked "Dexter?".

GIdidnotgoswimmingthatdayG

Here is a message from the world beating leader about the difficulty of the ride. He compares this ride to the "tour divide" which is an extremely hard, rugged ride (they have some movies showing how tough it is). Stuff gunna get interesting cuz this thing was billed as mostly bike paths.

squid.... would you be willing to add a signature to your posts that has the ride link? Beats having to scroll up every time trying to find out how Our Beast is doing.

/old man rant

I would be more than happy to if you would not mind instructing me.

So it looks like they will be changing the route a little bit. They will be rerouting riders onto small portions of 90 in order to aviod some real tough stuff. This event was started b/c during events like Trans Am (cross country race on roads) far too many competitors were getting hit by cars, several of whom have died. The (F) sponsored pro in this event still has ptsd from getting hit by a car and has withdrawn from the race and will not bike on the open highway. Her SO will pick her up and drive those portions dropping her off back on the trail. She is now in the non competitive supported ride class.

event link:
https://trackleaders.com/gawr24

ctrl + D to bookmark.

The movie to which squid refers is, I think, Ride the Divide, the story of one year's race down the continental divide trail from MT to NM.

I was hit/bumped by a car on my bike as a teenager when I was 15. Fortunately, I was thrown onto a lawn instead of the street. Still broke my collarbone. The car didn't even stop.

Hey nerds...see this post if anyone has any Emerald Isle thoughts please

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/9.../#post58602540