Itself, just saw this thread. Hope I can still offer something to you.

I rode the 109 last year, 80 mile the year before and 35 mile the first time around. What a difference between the riders in the 35 mile course and the 80/109.

The longer course tends to have much more experienced riders. The shorter has newbies (like I was, been riding 2 months when I did it) kids, very relaxed riders as in not paying attention to others around them. Anyway, I found it was easier to manuver in the 109. People had better skills which meant quicker responses, etc.

Remember, this course has one of the bigger groups of people at the start. Thousands! I got in line around the bronze level because frankly, I did not want to get there so early and I didn't want to get tangled with the faster riders. Figured I work my way through. Well, that last part didn't work as well as I would have liked.

From the bronze start it took less than 5 minutes to cross the start line. The difficulty was getting out of the packs. We were caught in packs until a good mile or two after the Santa Cruz River crossing.

Wherever you start and however early you get there, I hope they have port-a-potties near you and not only at the start line like last year. Being in the back it was a ways to the bathrooms. By the time I got through the line, I had to jog back to my bike to get there in time before the start. On the upside, the jog gave me a nice warm before the ride.

Good luck and have a blast!
dt