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Like this? Haven't tried it though.
https://zpacks.com/products/multi-pack

Old man mountain has been making stuff like that for a while too.
https://oldmanmountain.com/fit-kits-and-spare-parts/

Chapeau @skinny that's some impressive racing.
And all the others too obviously. Has been an interesting race to follow with so many pretty close to equally strong riders with different strengths. It really is rough to ride there at race pace (even at my personal race pace back when I was there) and you need to get everything so right to keep that speed up.

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Yeah only a few kilometers between them and Sofiane is soon on the descent. Looks like he's got it if the wheels and tyres won't break this time.

From skinny's instagram.

At about 9

On the satellite pictures it looks the route will shrink into a double track after about 20 km from where Sofiane is now, but at least there is a road or a track all the way over the mountains. Except for one kilometer to connect to the next road at the point where they turn to the steeper part of the climb. If the situation is still the same as in the picture, no landslides or anything. Steep too, shows 25 % for some of it.

Indeed and looking at the history of all three of the fastest women it's no surprise they are fast and will probably keep the pace up all the way to the finish.
https://instagram.com/eat.ride.love_

https://instagram.com/nathalie_baillon

https://instagram.com/peggy.marvanova

Skinny is already sixth and might get pretty close to Steven and Adrien on the climb to Son Kul and CP3.

The CP3 is in a beautiful high valley which is kind of like a big crater with a lake in the middle, flat grassland around it at least on the west side where they ride and mountain peaks around the area in every direction. A short but still proper climb out of it on the north side and if I remember right, part of the descend on the other side was surprisingly slow singletrack. Tracks made by the cattle that spend the summer there and some hiking in a shallow river, several small climbs in between.

Yup, https://bikepacking.com/plog/jakub-sliacan-srmr-interview/

I don’t cycle at night, ever. So, on the last night when I decided not
to sleep as an experiment, it was quite a new feeling to me that you
actually could fall asleep on the bike. At one point I caught myself
dozing off and weaving around. I won’t do that again.

Well now he is moving again but only a couple of kilometers ahead of Jakub.

I wonder what's happening here

Yes it does look like that and he knows what he's doing. The trackers might not be that accurate sometimes but it does say his moving average is a km faster than Sofiane's and he's been sleeping regularly. Then again, reading his race report from the last time it seems he really needs to sleep, while Sofiane can mostly cope with a lot less.
http://jakubsliacan.eu/srmr/2019/09/03/srmrno2_3.html

Looks like the top 5 didn't rest much in the beginning but have had longer breaks now for a couple of nights. Which means they won't get any further ahead but might be rested enough to keep it up now. Or not, anything could happen, someone could break a rim or something. It looks like a decent road from the small town of Baetov to the CP3 but off road tracks again after that.

The climb out of the valley where the CP2 is can be amusing, it's only a grassy slope but so steep it took an hour for Josh Ibbett for less than two kilometers.

The plateau at 3500m after the CP2 could be pretty tough in an "extreme" wind like that, it's so open, will be freezing at night. The terrain is slow and rough, nothing hard core as such but a long stretch of like dry riverbed and such unmaintained 4x4 tracks.

Looks like a properly hard headwind in skinny's IG stories and Josh and Max mention it too. Wonder if it the first oes managed to avoid some of it or if it was there all the time. Max says he's coughing blood and stops for a while hoping it will pass. Might just be the dusty headwind, I've had problems with my throat too when riding into a headwind for days.
Looks like it might a bit of a tailwind now for the ones turning south at Naryn, like skinny. A big but relatively smooth climb up before they get up high towards the CP2.

I'm no expert and you should probably talk with a professional. But, ulnar nerve flossing could help, you could google some exercises. I suppose it might also be your neck instead of you hands that's causing the problems, nerves pinching somewhere further. And with aerobars I feel it's important to have extensions that put you wrists in a neutral position, which many of the straighter extensions don't really do, I'd say it's better to have a proper bend in them. And on the MTB I like the inner barends for a slightly different position that's still good enough for some of the terrain and keeps your fingers on the brake levers.

There was more climbing in the first few hundred km last year indeed.
https://www.komoot.com/collection/1367757/silk-road-mountain-race-2022
https://www.komoot.com/collection/1883607/-silk-road-mountain-race-2023

I think Sofiane usually goes pretty all out from the beginning and while he is incredibly fast he does get tired and the pace drops towards the end. So it's not like Strasser who might keep more reserves for speeding up at the end.

Some of that section seems to be the same as it was in 2021, it's relatively fast until Naryn as they get to a lower elevation, but there are some punchy short climbs here and there. And there's a huge climb from the coast to where James is.

In a positive sense though, kind of like gonzo journalism?

Oh, that would actually be pretty good.

And obviously the best place for the bar end shifters is on the aero bar where it doesn't protrude so annoyingly.

You could buy the material here and make your own https://www.extremtextil.de/en/tent-poles/easton-carbon-tent-poles.html