South is Mud with some tire attrition
North is Heat and MORE tire attrition
1 Like
yes as @ABG said, they’ve been doing a 2 year south, 2 years north pattern for a while. They courses change a little year to year when staying south or north, but you ride a lot of the same roads. Then it flips. The section called “little Egypt” (on the north routes) which was around mile 90-100 was really hard. There are some YouTube videos of it. But general consensus is north is rougher roads. On wind, you can never tell. General view would be a southern route gets a headwind going out, then tailwind coming back. And vice versa for north route. But it’s Kansas, so you never know!
It is a really amazing experience. The town is so incredibly supportive. I’ve always had some really fun conversations with people both before, during, and after the race. And it is just beautiful out there on the Kansas plains.
Even if you can’t make it next year, you should definitely do at some point.
2 Likes
Curious what your yoga routines look like. Been doing gravel for 5ish years and my body is feeling beat up. Feeling like I need to add some yoga to help
3 Likes
I don’t have a set routine. I’m lucky enough to have a yoga teacher come to my house twice a week. We generally do “slow flow” one day and “yin” the other day. Just depends.
She knows my cycling and over the past few years knows my body. So lots of work on the hips (pigeon and firelog poses), quads (hero pose), sun salutations for general flow and core, occasional planks. My new favorite is wheel…and I can actually do it now! great for shoulders and back. So the focus is on lower back, core, and opening up the hips. But the poses and routine varies day to day and week to week. It’s been a game changer for me. My real favorite is Savasana (corpse pose!), which we do for 3-5 minutes at the end of every session 
3 Likes
Not looking to talk you out of n+1, but a XC MTB can serve as a surprisingly capable gravel race bike if you aren’t looking to do a lot of gravel racing/riding. The main drawback is a less aero position (which isn’t huge unless you end up without a group). I raced my scott RC FS for a couple years before getting a proper gravel bike and was able to ride near the pointy end (age group, not pro) more often than not. You’ll be spinning like a crazy man at times with the limited gearing and I’m sure there are some courses/conditions that might get you dropped, but I see guys spinning 38 chainrings on mtb’s near the front of many gravel races (even on fast non-tech courses). Bonus is that you get to be that crazy guy riding the MTB and you can suck wheel in the pack without being shamed by the others (to a point). Clearly not a strategy to optimize results, but a lot of fun and not as limiting as you might think. I’m doing unbound for the first time this year and I fully expect around mile 150 that I’ll be wishing I had ridden my Scott FS. I think my legs are gonna be fine and the rest of me is going to be screaming to stop. But of course I’ll be on my gravel bike getting beat to hell all day…
1 Like
I dunno….between the added aero drag and limited hand positions, riding a MTB for 200 miles seems sub-optimal.
A good buddy did The Rift on a hardtail (rigid fork) last year and there were times when I think he was definitely struggling.
3 Likes
Yeah, maybe not optimal from a speed standpoint if you end up in the wind by yourself, but I feel a lot better after racing 100 miles on chunky gravel on a MTB with suspension than I do on a gravel bike. I do fine for 3-4 hours, but these 100 miles races on chunky courses can sometimes go over 6 hours and I expect to be on the bike for over 12 hours for the 200. There are a lot of smooth sections on the unbound course, but there is some serious chunk as well (including a few new long stretches of freshly laid big/loose rock). I was out in emporia a couple weeks ago for 5 days and did about 350 miles on the gravel (including a 100m race) and my body was absolutely destroyed. The race was the last day of my week and I would have given my first born to switch to my FS MTB for that day. Had a good result, but was making terrible power the last couple hours (legs OK, but overwhelming discomfort). Lost a lot more time to discomfort than I would have gained by being more aero. And results be damned, there is something to be said for enjoying the day.
3 Likes
Don’t it seem reasonable that much of that discomfort came from the cumulative effect of 350 miles in 5 days on that gravel, not the bike?
Also, Jonathan is a fair bit faster than most of us….riding a MTB would handicap him more than us ( from an aero perspective)
2 Likes
Certainly played into it, but I’m not sure a single day of 200 is going to feel much better than 350 miles spread out over 5 days. My ass and hands got some rest between rides. We shall see in a couple weeks.
Yeah, agree that it’s probably not a strategy if someone is trying to hang with the pros or optimize their finishing position. I’m an age grouper and I typically only see the pros for a short period. Luckily, no pro men at the race I did in Emporia, but I watched a pro women ride away from our group about 30 minutes into the race and she won the race solo from about 90 miles out. Impressive stuff on a hot/windy day.
3 Likes
Ergon post installed this afternoon after work…a bit more involved than a normal SP installation, but nothing terribly difficult. Was surprised I was able to get the position set relatively quickly.
First ride tomorrow…full report to follow.
3 Likes
I have a full suspension trail bike that I will occasionally ride a gravel loop that connects to a mtb singletrack park. Certainly when I ride on that it’s super comfortable and I’m far more confident descending. I always wonder if I put some faster tires, still big but less knobby how I would do.
Update….post arrived and was installed last week. I’ve done 3 pretty long rides with it so far (3-5 hours each). One of them was down in Bentonville on some pretty chunky gravel. Happy to report it is fantastic.
More subtle that my previous USE seatpost….not as bouncy, but it does a great job of taking the edge off the rough stuff. Also, the rebound has more inherent damping than the USE post (which could “Buck” me occasionally).
Adjusting the saddle tilt is interesting as you have to loosen a bolt that the base of the post so you can slide the two halves against each other. This then adjust the angle of the saddle. The clamps only secure the saddle and let you adjust fore / aft positioning.
A simple, lightweight and aesthetically pleasing solution. I didn’t weigh it against the stock post that came with my Aspero, but it was not noticeably heavier.
3 Likes
I mean niner bikes and yt bikes already have full suspension gravel bikes. Evil Hagar is a gravel bike designed more like a mtb with drop bars.
I couldn’t imagine doing Unbound on a mountain bike. Sure it might work but it’s not a very technical race. I don’t see any benefit other than comfort perhaps but there is no chance its a faster bike even if a gravel bike may fatigue you more.
My setup is a 3T Exploro that pretty much mimics my road race bike. Other than my legs I had no discomfort during the day.
2 Likes
Again, not saying it’s the fastest, but people underestimate what can be done with an XC bike on gravel. I did a gravel race back in 2020 where I averaged over 21 mph on a full suspension MTB running 45’s and hung with the lead group (with a couple pros) for the first hour. My NP wasn’t significantly higher than guys finishing around me. It’s just not that much of a handicap. Same tires, not enough weight difference to really matter, so we’re talking mainly an aero difference (and you can do mini aero bars on a MTB and be more aero that someone on drop bars). Gearing is a potential issue, but mostly an excuse in my opinion. On his podcast last week, Dylan Johnson was talking about possibly running his hardtail with drop bars this year at unbound (no aero bars allowed) if the weather is bad. I’ll be on my Checkpoint at unbound and I’m not considering my XC bike regardless of conditions. But if I was only doing a couple gravel races a year, I would have kept doing them on my XC bike and I think I’d still be near the pointy end (at least in age group).
2 Likes
That was the weapon of choice for this race back when it started, actually, before “gravel” was even a marketing term. 
There was a niche concept of “monster cross” in those days, mostly put together by custom tinkerers, not bike companies, and that was the 2nd weapon of choice.
1 Like
Oh I know it was. I’ve been riding and racing gravel long before gravel became… gravel.
In the early days my local race was done on either road bikes with 23s or mountain bikes. Maybe a cross bike with 33s here and there. I also can’t imagine doing that race today on anything other than my gravel bike.
Anyrhing is doable, and what works for me may not work for others, but if I’m going to race for my best time or placing I just can’t see a scenario where my mountain bike is the bike I choose.
The differences between a gravel bike and a fast mountain bike may be small those small differences add up over 200 miles.
3 Likes
Leading up to Singletrack 6: a couple UCI XC races, in Missoula and in Utah! (and some bikepacking )
11 Likes
Yeah, I agree with your point though - just had a “by the way…” kind of thought. I wouldn’t want to do a race in that kind of wind on a MTB these days!
1 Like