Those who have done it before, do the corrals close at 6:15 AM? Or is that just their recommended time to get in by so riders aren’t rushing to squeeze in last minute? How firm of a rule are we talking?
How have you all managed the near freezing morning temps while waiting in your corral?
Last minute pointers appreciated! I’ll read up-thread later tonight to see if this has already been discussed in detail.
Wear a jacket take it off right before the start and put it next to a garbage can. It will be there when you finish..
Best of luck to all you Leadville racers. Those of us not racing are looking forward to reading your race reports in the coming days.
Also for those not able to race/attend - there will be a full race live feed on the lifetime Grand Prix page on YouTube. If it’s anything like the unbound stream, it’s pretty well put together! I’ll be at my daughters 4th birthday party but checking in periodically 
Live Stream…Kind of trippy watching this after riding the course last year and completely recognizing where the riders are on course without a map or having commentators saying.
Live feed is top notch, all things considered. Unbound was a big improvement, and this is easily a few notches above.
not the best day for Brendan Johnston. he got passed by the women and the announcers spent minutes speculating about how it’s the altitude, race just ate him up, etc. then it showed some footage
Flat bars hold on to the record for another year! 
congratz to @Jonathan for beating his target time!
Speedy for sure, nice work Jonathon!
Congrats to @BCM who was unofficially about 2:00 faster than last year (another “big buckle” effort") and looks to have made a big move in the finishing standings as well. Seems like maybe this year was a bit slower than last year, even though the pointy-end aliens went a few min faster as well. Interested to read all the race reports.
259 big buckles given out this year, compared to 396 last year. About 120 more finishers overall last year.
Any idea why that was? Conditions seemed excellent. No excessive heat - just a bit dry.
AQI was not great here in CO today, so maybe that contributed.
The wind and dust were really bad. Plus lots of smoke in the air from fires. I would say the conditions were much more challenging compared to last year but curious what others thought.
Wow, that lived up to the billing and was absolutely brutal. The day went basically perfect for me though and managed to bring home a big buckle with an 8:51 finish.
I was pacing to an 8:52 finish after using bestbikesplit and some Strava analysis from last year’s finishers. I started in the Purple corral based on my 5:16 at Silver Rush last month. I lined up in the 2nd row but think literally almost everyone in Purple had passed me by the time we started climbing St. Kevin’s as I tried to stay within my target power range. But, I started worrying I was pacing too conservatively when I was 5 min back from my target at Carter Summit and over 7 min back at Twin Lakes. I put in a strong effort up Columbine passing a lot of people (looking at results now, about 120) and was maybe a couple minutes back from target at the top of Columbine. I was able to pretty much stay on pace the rest of the day but Powerline definitely had me worried I’d lose my chance at sub 9. I knew I was going to be close at the bottom of St. Kevin’s so emptied the tank from there and managed to stay strong up the Boulevard to finish with some breathing room.
Congrats to everyone else today too. Sounds like some others had great days as well.
I was just looking at my ride and both our split times, we were pretty darn close for much of the day until I imploded on powerline a bit. I never saw him, but he could have been right next to me and my race brain probably wouldn’t have noticed.
I barely squeaked in for a sub 9 this year and was very happy with the result. I was about 10 minutes slower than last year, but I’m a little heavier, a little worse prepared, and the course conditions were challenging today. My NP was 3 watts lower than last year also. I tried to pace the early climbs a little easier this year hoping it would pay off later in the race, but I ended up cooking myself in the wind solo for a long time between twin lakes and powerline. I thought I was safely sub 9 starting powerline until I blew up a bit and saw my time at the top. Stomach issues as well. That made the road climb to Carter do or die and I was struggling and hit Carter with only 55 minutes to get to the finish. That’s totally reasonable with functioning legs, but I was cooked and it took a pretty dark effort to get it done. One highlight is that I PR’d the segment from Twin lakes to the top of powerline, beating last year’s time by 2 seconds w/ 1 watt higher power. Crazy how close those 2 efforts are, especially considering the walking/traffic dynamics are always different at the top. Leadville is just a simple math problem…
This was my first time riding it so nothing to compare it to but it was extremely dusty today and dirt was quite loose as it hasn’t rained recently. Not sure how it compares to last year but I hit some pretty intense head winds at times too.
I’m still coughing and having a bit of trouble breathing. I’m sure a large part of that is just from the exertion but think the poor air quality played a part too.
Heat wasn’t bad, but very loose surface conditions and the wind wasn’t favorable. And the air quality sucked (I’m honestly not sure how much that affects performance, but I was hacking stuff up all day).
edit - whoops, @Bnar beat me to it.
My opinion on conditions. Dry, super dusty, windy. Much sketchier and lots of crashes and EMS out on the course.
Multiple sections of the return with a headwind.
I personally dialed it back on the Columbine descent, but somehow managed to PR Powerline down….
Looks like Kegan even had a similar take. Just saw this quote from him on PinkBike…
Today was a bit sketchy — the dirt was super loose. I was really cautious on the Columbine descent as well, just trying to keep it upright and avoid crashing. Unfortunately, it was also a bit windy on the way home, but I still gave it everything I had, trying to go faster than I have before. I came up a little short, but it definitely wasn’t for lack of trying.”
