I love Sofia’s fiery demeanor. I think she is at her best when that fire is stoked. She wanted to prove a mountain biker could win and Unbound and she did it. Although not part of the GP, I loved seeing her and Haley tear up the Cape Epic.
At Leadville, my wife and I had a chance to talk to her the day before at the Specialized booth. She was incredibly friendly and kind, but when we talked about the race it seemed something was off. I wished her luck and she said she needed it. The next time I saw her was as I rode up Columbine only to see her walking down after she gave her wheel to Finsty. Her heart was not in it that day.
Just finished the Unbound episode. What a great series, super well produced. Looking forward to the racing this year, mostly to see how Trekky (Brendan Johnston) goes, compared to the Americans. Ten Dam seems like a cool dude.
I didn’t get the impression that Sofia was portrayed as a “villain”, or that she was disrespectful towards any of her competitors. At the time she was leading the series. She could talk with authority about what it means to be on a 4-year training plan for the Olympics (Hannah), and could matter of factly state that she should be able to win.
It’s totally appropriate for a pro, an olympian, winner of Unbound in an incredibly deep field to size up her competitors as well as herself in the moment. She was not there to play patty cake. I found Sofia’s balsy attitude well-earned and refreshing. She’s a mountain biker, after all, not a wilting flower.
I don’t know if that was tongue-in-cheek or not (sarcasm detector currently in the shop), but until this year, there wasn’t any cash (in terms of prize lists) in gravel.
The money is in the sponsorship, not race results. And in gravel, they aren’t necessarily tied together.
Love the series… great inside look at the athletes and the competitive drive they have. Awesome stuff.
One comment (I forget who said it) was something along the lines that they “barely make enough from their sponsors to cover participating in the races.” Are the top athletes not comped travel, hotel, food, etc.? And looking at the prize purse it seems really small… for the top races I. The US, I would think $25,000 would be the money awarded to the winner at each race… but it’s the over-all series winner. For example…. At Sea Otter first place is $500. That probably doesn’t even cover the hotel! You can win that at a local road race most places… and this is a big MTB festival event.
I just hope the athletes are taken care of and the events grow to support larger prize purses!
On the latest Groadio pod Yuri suggested all the LTGP athletes paid there own entries in full on sign up at the start of the year. I’m surprised they got anyone considering some of these athletes could command appearance fees at other races.
Prize money in cycling has never paid the bills, no matter the discipline. Road, MTB, CX, you name it……the money comes from sponsorship, appearance fees and bonuses.
Heck, the biggest race in the world only pays ~$500k to the winner.
It seems like we can all agree that Stetina came off as whiny about “the spirit of gravel.” But what about Payson’s comments after Unbound. To me, it came off as super salty that Ivar beat his buddy and a little whiny about his tactics. Keegan may have been the strongest that day (who knows it’s a 200 mile race), but Ivar was tactically smarter and won. That’s bike racing. Like because Keegan worked harder he deserved the win.
He said that exact same thing. I don’t think he took anything away from Ivar by saying Keegan was the hero of the day and he feels bad for him. Sometimes you have to give up the win for a chance at second. Keegan played it tactically perfectly, especially considering that in the end he lost to someone he wasn’t even competing against in the overall.
“lot of freeloaders in the group.” [Ivar} “was not the strongest, he just sat in the wheels a lot.” And it may have been just the editing, but it definitely felt like he was a little salty about Ivar winning.
I get that, but all is fair in love and war…or bike racing racing in this case. Do what you gotta do to win.
Payson spoke out a lot during the course of the season of his displeasure with people not working in the groups, so his comments after Unbound are in alignment with that. He may not like it, but it is part of racing so the onus is on him and others to figure out a way to combat it. In some races they did, like SBT GRVL where they left Stetina standing around in the aid station. Payson was not able to lineup for Big Sugar due to illness, but it sounded like when Roberge was hanging onto Keegan and Finsty’s wheels, they decided to take turns attacking him until something finally stuck and Finsty got away for the win.
For Unbound its hard to say what Keegan could have done differently. Like he said in the video, and early off the front attack would likely have been suicide. The late attack did shrink the group but Ivar stuck. In hindsight, Keegan probably would have handled the sprint differently because Ivar seemed to plan it perfectly how he came around Keegan right at the finish.
There are going to be a lot of lessons learned from 2022 LT GP and I think it’s going to make the 2023 season that much more interesting. I really hope Lifetime can get similar episodes released between events to really add to the intrigue as the season goes on.
A lot of this was inevitable…as more money comes into the sport, the idea of everyone sharing workload, etc. was gonna go out the window.
But again, the double-standard issue rears its head for me…Keegan intentionally let Finsty win Big Sugar by not chasing down his buddy. I pointed out years ago that this was a likely scenario at some point when others were complaining about “teams” showing up at gravel races and potentially introducing team tactics. Sure, Finsty and Keegan weren’t on the same team, but the overall question of tactics are the same…Keegan purposely let someone else win by not chasing / doing the work.
Just to clarify, I don’t have an issue with what he did…just illustrating the double-standard. Payson and others didn’t complain about it because Keegan and Finsty are part of the “club”.
Teams…it’s kinda unofficially here. Remember, in Unbound, Dylan Johnson recruited some friend to all ride together at a set pace from the gun to try to be more fresh at the end. Weren’t all wearing the same jersey, but sounds like a team effort to me. And stuff like that, is what will truly kill the spirit.
Keegan, Finsty, and Griffin flipped gravel upside down. Payson, an early adopter of the whole gravel thing and the rules, is kinda flipping his stance and clinging onto Keegan/Finsty club.
