Alexey’s BWR winning rig

… and you can’t buy my of it (yet).

Two pieces of gear I found particularly interesting:

  1. He won on some type of 40mm Kenda slick prototype, while most other riders rode 32-35mm. That’s a big width gap to roll up on in a race you want to win. He must have tested those extensively and felt really good about them. I really, really love wider tires, but when things get above 35mm I get antsy going wider … especially when my gravel races have long sections of road or hardpack.

  2. Interesting that he thought the pre-loaded bacon strips taped to his mount were a quicker solution than a Dynaplug Racer tool … which seems like it would be faster in a jersey pocket.

PS - I’m a huge Alexey fan … he and Larry Warbasse more or less are the lone riders representing the Michigan peloton🤘(Alexey = Barry Roubaix and Iceman winner)

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I bet/hope this is the start of a strong(er) trend towards:

All gravel tires getting wider, to allow for lower profile knobs down the center.

I’ll take tire volume and lower PSI for traction any day over narrow & hard with more knobbies.

I’m probably creating a false dichotomy here so plz take as my 2 cents.

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I rode it and def saw a trend of super wide file tread to no tread on MTB set ups or 650b gravel bike set ups…looks promising and with low enough pressure and a little file would’ve been nice on that course.
I went with a 30mm file tread and did not inspire confidence but my wheels and tires held (just not me or m7 computer mount)

Dang, bold tire clearance! Pretty sick looking bike.

Great podcast by FasCat with Alexy.

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