It’s kinda annoying when they speak like experts on things they don’t have experience with. Today was mud at unbound. Yup it was muddy, but it surely isn’t that muddy every year. Basically they were saying don’t bother with aero, cause you be covered with mud. Don’t do x, because mud. Really, this past year is not what happens every year.
Another topic, singlespeed. Seems like I remember them discussing it(a while back), although they admit (except ivy) that the don’t ride or have ridden, but certainly had expert opinions on it
Anyway, speak from experience, it makes a better product.
Jonathan or ivy haven’t done DK unbound whatever it’s called.
That doesn’t mean they’ve never raced in mud. Ivy races cyclocross with gears and single speed, there’s also a video of a race so muddy they were sliding down a hill. Ivy was sliding down that hill but it’s not unbound so it’s not the same?
You’re listening to a talk show. They talk about things. They share experiences & opinions. I’ve never got that anyone is saying they are an expert. In fact they ask and discuss differing opinions. (Well for most things besides the trigger points). But that’s just my observation, I acknowledge yours is different.
Kinda agree. Most of the advice was good in theory but tends to fall apart within the actual experience of a 200 mile race. Extra watts on your FTP are worthless if you fall apart in the heat or struggle with your nutrition (speaking from personal experience at Unbound…)
This is nothing new. Lots of expert talk over the years and theories on how to optimize for a race based on equations, scientific studies, and theories, and then it all falls apart when the rubber hits the road. 24 Hours in Old Pueblo, Singletrack Six, Cape Epic… Not that they can be faulted. Most everyone has to go and experience these races first hand and learn through experience. Like the saying goes, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
Kind of agree when it comes to gravel racing, but it sounds like Jonathon has taken an interest (at least for unbound next year). Would be good to see them regularly racing gravel to get more perspective, but it’s hard to cover all the disciplines. They have had some decent podcast guests with good insight, I think they had cole paton on recently and keegan and hannah have been on quite a bit. Their viewpoints are a little different as a pros at the really pointy end, but it’s still good to hear how they approach some of these races.
… and added the caveat time and again that these are Best Bike Split numbers, which assume best conditions. In particular, one of the take-aways was that increasing your power has much more benefit than a lighter bike or many aero benefits. Aero benefits and e. g. drive train efficiency arguments (e. g. 1x vs. 2x) are arguably smaller when you are also dealing with mud. Hence, things like aero gains would be even smaller on a muddy day and increases in power even more important (relatively speaking).
I agree that the spirit of the of the message was focus on raising your FTP for these type of long gravel events than obsessing over losing weight or aero, but I also see @BillyWaldman’s point that Jonathan did lean hard into the mud stuff to the point where he made it sound like the mud would be a constant.
If I was going to do this event I’d still shave my legs and do other small cheap things to optimize wherever I could, but the point still stands that a lot of things can happen to nullify those marginal gains but having more power is going to help you in virtually every condition.
It isn’t like they purposefully exclude any of those other factors from the discussion. They may not focus on all the factors on all the days…the podcasts would all be the same every week, and be 16 hours long. They pick a topic and discuss it. Lots of weeks they have guests that have even more or different experience than they do.
All the constant critics on here must have awesome podcasts. Someone should start a thread of user podcasts so we don’t have to suffer through the TR podcasts anymore.
I have no doubt that both would do well, but let’s not bring mud into this. Not sure there’s a CX race on this planet with a 3 mile mud section where if you get mud on your bike, that mud will just attract and retain any other mud it comes in contact with. I stepped in the mud, then took more steps and it looked like I was wearing lead clown shoes. You can’t even really walk in the stuff it’s so bad.
We had like 3 weekends in a row like that a couple years ago. I was doing like 350 watts to keep pace with people walking their bikes in the mud…
It was actually pretty cool. We got so much rain, races had to be moved to an abandoned golf course. So once you picked up the requisite 20 pounds of mud, you rode through sand bunkers to cover the outer layer with sand lol. That was…‘fun.’
Cyclocross races are fun in the mud a 200 mile gravel ride with 3 miles not so much. I Guess that’s why I don’t do long events like that.
I don’t think they ever say they’re experts but they do have experience. So that means something different depending on who you ask. Some cycling podcasts are boring IMO, and they all start repeating the same things at some point. Carbohydrates, Fats, , zone 2, pyramidal, polarized etc. only so many things to talk about.
I have to remember that there are new people trying to learn things and don’t have time to listen to every recorded episode. So what’s old for someone is new for someone else.
