The Kiwi Brevet follows a 1100km (683.5mi.) route, and climbs 11000 meters (36,089ft.) in the northern part of the southern island of New Zealand. You are allotted 8 days to finish the route, many will do it faster. The rules of the brevet are similar to that of the Tour Divide. Complete the route under your own power with NO SUPPORT. You must call/text/or tweet at all 7 check-in locations. You also must spend 6 hours a day not traveling, meaning you may only travel the course 18 hours of the day.
As of Friday there were 105 participants signed up and ready to take on the challenge. You can see all rider profiles HERE. It looks like the weather should play an interesting roll, while temperatures will be seasonable, and cooler near mountain passes. A chance of precipitation will be present from Saturday night through Monday.
The Kiwi Brevet promises to be another great endurance event in the southern hemisphere, and it has shown in the level of participants over the past two years. The Kiwi Brevet will showcase the beautiful Southern Alps, and countryside of New Zealand, a country with extreme amounts of diversity in terrain.
All participants will be carrying a SPOT tracker. You can track them here on a new live tracking system developed locally in Christchurch: http://kiwi-brevet-2015.followmyspot.com/ . Most of their check-ins will be through twitter, so check out their twitter account: https://twitter.com/KiwiBrevet. For more information and updates, check out the Kiwi Brevet website.
Troy Szczurkowski, a BPM contributor, has a few great blog posts about his preparation for the Kiwi Brevet as well as the ITI check it out…http://troyszczurkowski.blogspot.com.au/
Good luck to all!
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