Great tip - added to the list. Will find a Goodwill en-route and pick something up. I may actually do some warm water in a bottle to start to encourage me to drink for that first hour.
Copper is still high (9700 feet).
Other side of Vail pass is lower - Avon (7400), Edwards (7200), Eagle (6600). Longer drive to Leadville though.
Sounds like you have time and flexibility to figure things out.
This was back in 2017 and 2019. I did not have my nutrition dialed for long rides back then.
The first year, I just did not eat or drink enough. The 2nd year I tried to eat more, but solid foods like cliff bars. Didn’t work either - as hard to eat solid foods as the day goes on, and takes too much effort and time to consume a lot of calories.
This year will be 100% fueling via gel flasks. And a minimum of 750ml per hr fluids. I’ve done this successfully in a number of long events over the past few years, including Unbound (where thankfully I learned the day before to check caffeine content and consumption in gels - 2 hrs with caffeine gels is one thing. 15hrs is something else!).
Yes - I wear a 1.5L pack and carry a 750ml bottle. Pack refill will be at twin lakes both times. Bottle refills more frequently. See my post up-thread about me overthinking when to refill my bottle. I have water and electrolytes only in my pack and bottle - no calories.
Plus, pick up new gel flasks at twin lakes both times.
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What I meant was that the flats are going to make me suffer - I don’t intend to go all out here at all and I’ve very focused on sticking to my pacing plan and not blowing up. Total bonus if I can sit in on a group and be towed but otherwise it’s steady state for me and just ride my numbers.
I think I mentioned in a different response but if I fuel right and am close to my targets my race starts at Powerline and it’s close to empty the tank from there onwards…IF I get it right up to that part and get a bit of luck.
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Well my point - they shouldn’t make you suffer. Tone them down to be in groups, steadily covering ground, riding with purpose, steady effort (For me - High Endurance/Low Tempo Tops). But, you can’t be “suffering” here. You’ll pay for it elsewhere. And that may mean going with slower groups to keep from going too hard.
Another point I will add if trying to go sub 9 is that you will have two different camps of thought on how to approach LT100. One will be to go out way easier than you think you should so you don’t burn yourself up late in the day. Almost where you feel like you are crawling on the first couple climbs. The other approach is to put out a little higher effort in the beginning to be with a fast group by the time you get beyond Powerline to the flat section. However, this is where the long zone 2 and durability is critical to have.
I am more in the second camp and will average low threshold up the steep part of St. Kevins and will average high tempo / low threshold for the full climb to the pavement. I will not go above Threshold but I will push slight harder through this part and even second climb up Sugarloaf. You are also freezing by the time you get to St Kevins so this also helps you warm up quicker.
Last point, it is a good idea to know your power zones and I would set a target for the climbs and flats. The first year I had a very elaborate top tube time schedule that did not help at all. The second year I had no schedule but mentally knew what I wanted to hold power wise on flats and climbs. The only issue I had last year is I rode inbound from Turquoise Lake at upper zone 2 / low tempo due to the crazy head wind and no one to work with on the “flat” section which caused my power on Powerline climb to be 10-15 watts lower than what it should have been. I still went sub 9 with a good time but looking back this is the one mistake I made.
Otherwise, this approach of going slightly harder in beginning and setting power targets has worked really well for me.
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My strategy would be to do a bit of both, by trying to get into a high corral. Red or maybe silver at Lutsen. Start easy, then I would likely get picked up by some fast riders after powerline and still end up in a fast group?
Agree with this for the climbs. I generally climb low Sweet Spot for the early climbs (~85% adjusted for altitude, maybe up to 90% for St. Kevin’s) - I am also fully on board for power targets (and ceilings) on steady state parts of the course. You just can’t do that on the climbs and make yourself suffer on the flats.
I think being in a faster corral is helpful, but you don’t want to be further forward than you should be. I’ve narrowly missed red a couple years running and there are plenty fast people in green where I end up riding with a lot of people from the red corral.
If you’re in Silver you should have a realistic shot at Sub 8 (or faster?) on a good day or you’re too far up.
This is a good point and I forgot that the beginning can also be dictated by the coral. I was starting from Silver and tagged onto a very fast group of 20. We had also caught a good portion of the Gold coral by the time we got to the top of Sugarloaf. Starting from the back corals your effort up the first climb could be slowed down by the number of people.
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A quick anecdote about the flats. Key is to have a plan on race day but be smart and ready to adjust. My plan was to descend Powerline cautiously but push my comfort zone at the end if I’m near a big group.
This worked and I found myself in a group of ~15 riders coming off the bottom of Powerline. When we hit the pavement, it got crazy! I sat on the back for a minute and was seeing 300+ watts. I made the decision to just let them go. Within a couple minutes a few riders caught me and we rotated well and at a steady pace (hovering near and under 200 watts). We caught most (if not all) of that group of 15 that had completely shattered into ones and twos by the time we hit the ‘steep kicker’ after outbound aid station.
I think a lot of people get it in their head that they need to stick with the group they’re with on the flats while in reality you want to be with the right group.
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I’m currently in green corral. I finished lutsen in 2025 in 6h 20 seconds, and missed out on red by those 20seconds. I wasnt really racing the clock, but had a good day on the bike, and took a wrong turn, and had a long stop having my 5 year old daughter change bottles. Losing a couple of minutes or so total. That was being 186lbs and ~290-300w, so about 3.6w/kg. Currently im 20 Lbs lighter and gained 10-20watts and am more durable, so I think riding in red should be doable on similar day, maybe even silver (this would required 20min and some seconds faster overall than last year). My take on it is, if i ride into that corral I belong there 
. That being said, with the numbers quoted here, im on the bubble for a sub 9 leadville.
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That’s pretty much my exact approach as well. I don’t get into threshold on those early climbs, but more like my altitude adjusted sweet spot. And that feels really uncomfortable for me at 10k feet, breathing pretty hard (feels like threshold + at sea level), but I’ve learned that it’s very sustainable.
Part of my reasoning for pushing a bit early is getting ahead of traffic and finding good groups after powerline, but I also think those climbs (kevins, road, sugarloaf) have a better cost/benefit for pushing a few more watts than other spots on the course. And for my own physiology, doing a few short-ish sweet spot efforts early in the day isn’t going to put me in a hole, it’s almost like a warm up for the day. It mirrors my training in a lot of ways where I often do my intervals first the then settle into hours of endurance afterwards (which feels really easy after pushing some intervals). Some people would say to save those watts for later in the day, but my body doesn’t work like that.
I’m raced multiple times at weight/watts really close to your “new” numbers and I’m usually on the bubble between red and green in my local qualifier and the stage race when I did it. So, I’ve started in red and and I’ve started in green and I honestly can’t tell much difference except maybe a small difference climbing Kevins where I’d be closer to the front of the group in green. And I think my fastest time to the bottom of Kevins was actually from Green. And by the time you get to the top of sugarloaf, you’ll likely be mixed with the group ahead and group behind since they only start a couple minutes apart from each other. Not sure if Silver/gold would be fundamentally different, but I don’t think there is any real downside to getting in a faster corral unless they are going to push you too hard sitting in the group on that dirt road stretch to the bottom of Kevins.
I think the only corral I wouldn’t want to be in is gold (not that I have the legs to qualify for that spot). Looked like there were 5-10 people in that group in 2025. Seems like a disadvantage and I’m not sure why gold doesn’t start with the pros.
I think as long as you’re in a corral that is likely to have no walkers on St Kevin’s then the impact, if any, on your day is extremely minimal. If you’re starting in white or brown where people may be walking on St Kevin’s then I’d just suggest to keep a level head and be ready to step off your bike if needed for a minute or two and keep a level head.
The main reason I wanted red was for my wife to get a parking pass for Twin Lakes. Looks like the spots at Twin Lakes are going to be by lottery in some way now though.
Last year at least, Red and Silver were a combined start so no reason to care about getting from Red to Silver if they keep doing this. Being in that corral actually kinda sucked for me for two reasons. It was a little colder than I experienced at the start in 23 so I was frozen and I warm up very slowly. The Red/Silver folks went out hard before we even hit Kevin’s. It was crazy. I basically hit the climb at the back of the group because I was not willing to try that hard on the first part of the course where it is so easy to go fast on without effort. But that also cost me being able to ride with those folks later on. I spent most of my day with the green corral people.
In my experience, the Green corral does the same thing. I don’t think silver was mixed with Red when I was in Red, so maybe that’s different now with Silver pulling that group. Either way, I’m sure my highest wattage spikes of the day are on that dirt road rolling to the bottom of St. Kevins. There are a couple little bumps on that road that people just smash. It’s very crit-like until you hit the climb. I’m usually freezing my ass off in a pure summer kit, so I don’t mind a few spikes to get some heat in the body and wake the legs up.
I wonder if you picked up the faster green guys this way, that you would have missed had you started green.
If I wasn’t so cold, I probably would have gone with them. Couldn’t feel my fingers so I def didn’t want to participate in the dirt crit for 10 minutes. I need it to be 40+, not 30. Despite living in MN, I’m not a cold weather person. 
My wife’s from MN, it must be a thing. She doesn’t like our Texas winters…
I live at the top of a hill that immediately drops into a valley that is crazy cold in the mornings when I start my saturday rides. It can be 40F at my house and mid 20’s in that valley (I hit it within a minute of leaving the house). And 40F in the morning usually means 60’s by noon, so minimal kit. It’s only about 10 minutes of pure hell before I climb back up to the warm air, so it feels like a shorter version of the Leadville start. I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten used to it, but I’ve gotten to where I know I can function well enough to shift gears and pedal until it ends. At Leadville, I know it’s going to suck really bad rolling out of town regardless of what I wear, so I haven’t even bothered with arm warmers the last few years. It’s my face and fingers that really hurt, arm warmers or vest don’t really make a difference for me for that short period and I don’t want to have to screw with removing them on the Kevin’s climb.
This reminds me of the disposable arm warmer tip I got from a runner many years ago; take an old pair of long socks, cut the toes open and pull onto your arms. Simple throw them away at an aid station.
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That is a good tip! I used only arm warmers in 2024 and no arm warmers last year. I should have done the throw away sock trick. That first stretch is really cold until you get to the dirt road and can start putting in a little effort. It is also crazy how much the temperature drops from the start to the river/railroad crossing.
For Silver/Red corals, they have been combined the last two years. Gold was combined with pros in 2024 but not last year and started 30 minutes (if I remember correctly) after pros. It looked like there were maybe 30-40 riders in Gold last year if I had to guess.
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