You won’t get much from power data with walking/hiking mixed in. I doubt his is inaccurate. He had a top level bike and gear
Doesn’t make sense to me either.
My NP for the day was 196W on a quarq spider (all in with walking and descending) per TP, I weighed sub 180. Strava was 190W weighted avg. power. I came in at 9:02
I guess forum users all have their own perspective on what qualifies as “impressive”. My understanding is Leadville is a pretty challenging race so to me being in top 20% in your age group is impressive. Doesn’t mean you’re elite or amazing or a world beater but it likely means you’re no slouch.
There are drop bag areas at some of the aid stations. I left an extra full USWE, an extra full bladder, full bottles, and bags of gels for pickup at the aid stations so I could have my own fuel. Volunteers see your number and bring out your bag fast, and then bag everything up again as you leave.
I spent ~4 minutes over two stops to replace bladders and stuff gels in my pocket and clear out trash.
Everything gets dropped off and returned back in Leadville after the race. Hundreds of people do this for the race.
Certainly no slouch.
But if your professional job description is essentially, “be in the best shape possible,” the bar is raised IMO.
That’s awesome they do that, I didn’t know that was an option for Leadville.
I’m doing BWR Arizona in less than a couple weeks. I wonder if they do the same, I’ll have to ask.
Not like I do a ton of racing, but drop bag areas have been available at literally every race I’ve done in the last 2-3 years.
Many possible reasons. First, it’s not a time trial and it’s not on tarmac. He may have gotten into better groups to ride the draft, and/or took many less pulls (or none at all). He could have picked better lines, on average, using less power to go faster while riding uphill or downhill. He could have pedaled less or not at all while descending. Etc etc.
Looking at the power and time for a Mtb race is akin to having the highest power in the crit race and wondering why you lost
I’m well aware of the factors, I was in the race and been on that course a handful of times, but IMO there’s more to it than that when it averages out over a ~9 hour race for the power difference you’re seeing. Especially when I can look at my specific power for the race.
If it was smaller, I’d tend to agree.
Just want to jump in on this one and say how thoroughly impressed I am at Rich’s performance. Sub-9 is really, really hard to do, and for Rich to do that with relatively little training and with his build, just thoroughly impressive.
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Try getting the dude on the podcast. Would be something different and interesting.
I watched the documentary. I think crossfit is a goofy “sport” but found it mildly entertaining and was impressed by his time for someone without a cycling background and only training at low altitude 3-4 days a week. All of the shots of riding without a jersey were pretty cringe
My legs quit mid way through his race!
That looks very difficult
No, thats a great time… regardless of who he is…
Hmm, it made me think that I might consider doing more of it this summer! I don’t have quite the muscles to show off but it probably feels amazing with the wind on your skin instead of a shirt or jersey. Especially considering the heat and humidity he was probably riding through in a Tennessee summer.
lol, that’s a CrossFit thing and always has been from the beginning. Most CrossFit gyms (boxes) didn’t have AC and it would be quite hot and humid, so shirtless is the norm. It does look odd now that I’m a cyclist but many CrossFitters in the early days would even compete without a shirt. It’s not how it looks and is likely just because he was hot.
Agree with all of that, but I specifically looked at a few of the climbs (including road climbs) and his climbing wattage was almost identical to mine. Those climbs are basically simple math problems without a lot of variables (especially on the same course and same conditions). I suspect he was a good bit under 190 on race day, he looked much bigger in some of those training videos vs. his race day video. Or maybe just a favorable power meter (one-sided or whatever). You could explain a small difference on climbs based on tire setup, bike weight, some drafting, etc., but there is no way someone is going to climb at the same watts if they weighed 20+lbs more than another rider on a similar bike. You can also look at the strava weight splits for some of these segments. Rich was in the 180-199lb segment and most of the people in the same weight segment (with power meters) were pushing 30-40 more watts up the segments with the same time. For me, that indicates he’s likely on the lower end of that weight bracket (or even under it) and/or his power meter wasn’t accurate.
Would love that!
Maybe his had a secret motor like Fabian Cancellara back in 2010 (disclaimer: I do not believe Cancellara had a motor)?
AND let not talk about shirtless runners…
At least I run before dawn, so most people dont get to see my ugly hairy back and big keg (instead of six pack)…
When I was running more and training for triathlons and doing long runs in heat I would run without a shirt. Nobody was impressed by my spindly upper body.