Originally Posted by jitteringjr

Not going to be much help, but wanted to say good luck with it and it would be cool to hear how it goes for you. I grew up in Southern MN by Mankato so I am familiar with the area. Starting at midnight should give you about 9 hours of cool weather to ride in so that should help with how much water you will need to make it past the first 150 miles. How much are you thinking you will need? At 65-70F here in Denver, I am thinking I could probably make it 150 miles with my large camelback with water and 2 bottles of sports drink, but MN is a lot more humid and I would sweat a lot more there than I would in CO. Do you think you would need a lot more water than that? You could add a top tube frame pack and put a second camelback bladder in there. Or you could mount these brackets to the handlebars and add two more bottles up there:

https://planetcyclery.com/velo-orang...r-cage-bracket

How are you going to keep the electronic stuff charged? Will you be using a dynamo type hub to keep your lights going? Cell phone and or Garmin or other computer? Or will you be bringing battery packs to help with this? Or do you think you will not need that and get additional lights or batteries at the check points?

Here is a good video on food and hydration from gravel cyclist at the DK200 if you haven't seen it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGSc0KZH7K8&t=307s

Anyhow good luck and have fun. Let us know how it goes. Maybe I'll give it a go one of these years when I visit my parents up there.