GhostRider62

Indiana Shultz's kit detailed in this video, he finished second in 2018.

Orion96

Thanks everyone for your answers.

GhostRider62, when you say 23-25 pounds total, is that including the bike? I'm taking note of the critical skill of logistics

I haven't yet decided which event I'll do first, but I would like to go to Europe next year. If I can get a spot, I might do the Transcontinental. Temperatures will be different there than for the TABR, but now I at least have some sort of benchmark that I can get down to around 26 oz for 45F.

GhostRider62

I typed out a long response but the forum timed me out, unfortunately. So, this is a quickie

23-25 lbs is light. yes with bike. Racing bikes are 15-17 lbs

28-30 lbs without food and water is probably the norm

Make sure you practice with your sleeping system.

Even Mike Hall had sleeping kits. Light for sure. It is possible to do TABR using hotels.

I might do RaTN next year. I'd still have a cuban fiber tarp, pad, and bag even though it is only 2000k

adamrice 

If you look at the bike setups of Kraig Pauli and Evan Deutsch, who finished 1-2 this year, you'll see their bags are shockingly minimal. ED had a full-frame bag, but he also stored a water bladder in that. A lot (all?) of the fastest racers carry no more than an emergency bivvy--basically a giant potato-chip bag--as their sleep setup. Judging from this interview, Abdullah Zeinab didn't even carry that.

GhostRider62

I followed Evan as a dotwatcher one year. I am pretty sure he sleeps in a hotel every night. You can approximately see where riders stop, depending if they turn off their tracker in advance. Riders that cowboy camp tend to do that for safety reasons. Riders staying in hotel rooms don't have such concerns like that.

When he passed me at the 200km or so mark in 2016, I first thought he was just a local rider out on a training ride. Very small bag. Learning how he arranges hotels would be an interesting exercise. Lael carried more gear for sure.

Orion96

The interview from Abdullah Zeinab is very interesting. I hadn't seen it before. I'm at the information gathering phase, so it's great to read the experience of other riders!

Why do riders turn off their trackers in advance when camping?

adamrice 

To conserve battery power. The trackers send a ping every 5 minutes. There's no need to update your position when you're not moving. The latest model of Spot tracker automatically pauses pings when it detects it's not moving for 18 minutes.

GhostRider62

Battery is trivial.

Safety is probably a bigger factor.

If you are sleeping on the edge of the road in a little grove of trees, do you want anyone in the whole world to know that? I don't. You might have a different view.