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Well he cancelled the race. There is no race. If people ride an 'old race route' by their own choice it's nothing to do with him is it?

A lawyer might argue he didn't cancel it. In his cancellation notice he encuraged people to ride anyway, Ryan Flin, who works for Dragon Face is doing some organising, and things like the Maprogress tracker are in place. Wacker, when he tried to suggest an alternative tracker, got firmly elbowed out of the way.

Saying you've cancelled it and cancelling it are not necessarily the same thing!

Jesse is cool about it being called IPWR (as in race) and people riding it at the same time, and racing it, etc. It's just he doesn't want him Dragon Face, or anyone else, to be the official organiser, most likely because there's no organiser's liability insurance.
From the POV of a rider, it means that, if you do have an accident that you believe is due to organiser negligence, you wouldn't have anyone to sue. How likely is that anyone would sue? Pretty unlikely, but it could happen or else he wouldn't be bothered about the insurance. Whether he has actually done enough to get off the hook legally as being the organiser if someone were to sue him is not certain, though.

Weather forecast looks good!

Wasn’t having a dig at Jesse and his efforts! Just might make it more exiting with no coverage / not knowing. It’s kind of guerrilla racing.

Sure. It will basically be like TABR now

Maprogress? Is that what they used last year?

Yes. Here's the link to this year's:
https://indianpacificwheelrace2018.maprogress.com/

There is talk of changing it to take the word 'race' out but they've not done it yet.

Michael Wacker has taken that down now. He got a bit flamed on Facebook for using it to drive traffic to his own site, which seemed a bit harsh. But the official Maprogress tracker is going to be operating on an unofficial basis and there are 20-odd riders signed up on it. So basically it will be just the same as last year regarding dot watching!

A bit harsh - Jesse spent a bunch of money last year putting 3 film cars on the road and pushing it hard on social media!

Texas Overland Wheel Race
Apparently it's in October, which is a good time of year. But they have mandatory 6 hour rest periods (which I think is shite)
Here is the route.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/25580094

Yes, that's right. @scherrit fitted them for me and routed the cables. There was a tiny bit of swearing required, but they did route through ok.

You'll probably like WA.

I rode with a Victorian for a couple of hours on the way to Norseman. He said that the roads were better quality (there isn't a pothole in the state as far as I saw), the drivers are more considerate (relative) and you can descend on your aerobars at night without hitting an animal (because, apart from one cat in Freo and a few crows, there aren't any).

You might even like the food!

Sounds like what may have happened is that Jesse had to pull it because he couldn't get organiser's liability insurance:

I think that the race's insurer will pay out any claim from Hall's
family without it going to court, but has refused to cover this year.

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/australian-ultra-endurance-race-cancelled-one-year-on-from-death-of-mike-hall-in-2017-event-368436

Yeah there's that, I understand, but I think that's not right really, with an unsupported race.

I agree. The level of cycling knowledge that judges and coroners have is so poor that Jesse / his lawyers must have felt the risk of an adverse finding was significant.

Reading his message, what he is doing is backing off all organisational support, like the event tracking system, the media cars, any further refinement of the route.

It would be incredibly harsh if Jesse ended up being blamed because a motorist hit a guy on a bike on a straight clear road with no other traffic present.

If you define fun as riding across a pancake flat, featureless desert into a constant headwind which carries the stench of a thousand dead kangaroos while being targeted by crazy drivers and eating shit food, then it is fucking ace.

They normally don't, I was hoping for one in 2016 when I had tyre issues and they didn't have one.
The controls are really just someone sitting at a table in a cafe stamping cards. If a sponsor does more than that it's a bonus

The main problem with using a phone is the screen. It's not bright enough if it's sunny and way too bright at night.
Otherwise the mapping apps are at least as good as a gps nowadays, and maps give way more detail (than my 705, anyway!)

I'd recommend a 1000 if you're going to use Garmins.

I'd recommend a 705 and not using turn-by-turn!
Garmins didn't get any better at navigating in the last decade, just more complicated, buggy and shorter battery life.

But does the court accuse the organiser of the accident?

That's the implication, that there is potentially some liability he is concerned about.
There always is the risk when you organise something. eg when I organise my club's reliability ride, we have organisers' liability insurance from CTC to cover anyone hurting themselves and sueing us.

Wow!
Very disappointing for everyone who has entered, trained, planned around it, bought flights, etc.
Also a shame for Jesse, he's put a lot of work and some money into this.
It doesn't look like he's run that letter past his lawyers! He's kinda encouraging people to ride anyway which, if he has liability concerns, might not be the best approach. But I expect he knows what he is doing.

I've got a set of 3T Clip-On Pros
Bought in the Autumn and used 2 or 3 times: didn't like them but others do.

Ah, OK - they were different from here. They didn't go soggy so quickly.

I found it very hard avoiding meat. There are the junk options, but it is miserable to live on that for multiple days. [EDIT - actually I don't mind living on the junk options if they are not lacerating my mouth but there was no soft junk like 7 Days croissants] And on the Nullarbor, it is all service stations so you can't get basic things like a loaf of bread, it's only either prepared stuff or packaged stuff.

My mouth was in a bad state so I ended up going for whatever was the mushiest food. There isn't much pasta around and I never saw rice. The only pasta I saw was the spaghetti bolognaise at Eucla, which I had because I was craving pasta. The other big food highlight was Weetabix + milk at Nullarbor road house.

Blog - day 6

https://cyclingthere.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/ipwr-2017-day-6-an-unexpected-encounter-the-land-of-the-march-flies-and-bang/

Yes, there is a wide range used. Schwalbe Pro One tubeless and Conti GP4000 (tubes) are probably the most common. I've had a tyre failure in a big ride using each of those so won't give any recommendations!
Same with width. I'd guess 25mm probably most common but plenty of 23 and 28mm and a few fatter ones.

Make sense to stick to what you're used to

Aussie roads are in much better condition than here. I only saw one pothole before Adelaide so you don't need masses of control. But if you like that, fine. Make sure you get used to them as wide bars can give you ache between the shoulders.