The 200 is a mix for sure. The roads closer to towns have a lot more “hero” gravel so lots of speed to be had. But there’s definitely some tougher chunkier gravel sections. I’d say this year most chunky sections were mostly fine depending on your bike handling skills. There were a couple short steep descents with some extra chunky stuff where I just thought “I’m too tired to ride this” and walked over them. For the 200, I was certainly happy to have a bit of “hero” gravel to give me a breather from the climbing.
Hah…I was in a blue ENVE kit with my buddy. 
I used 3 feet cycling this year after using crew for hire thru registration in the past. I thought they were great. I wonder if one advantage they may have is I don’t know that they’re handling as many riders as the crew for hire so they may not have as many riders at any one time to manage. I thought they did a great job. It was nice just handing off the bike and having them quickly wipe and lube the chain.
Hey all, Been reading from a far and massive shoutout to everyone that took part this year.
Just a quick question. This is now a bucket list race and I want to take part next year (would be my first) how do you get a spot in the elite pen? Is this done at registration or on estimated finish time?
Podcasts I’ve listened to this year said there was an application process and it was limited to I think 150 riders.
Correct. Dunno what the limit was, but you need to get in through the lottery first and then apply for the Elite wave seperately.
That’s awesome thanks. fingers crossed
Three of the top 10 (2nd, 9th, and 10th) were on Felt bikes. That’s wild.
What a great ad for them!
I’ve missed this whole thread because I thought it was all about Jonathan!
Congratulations to those of you who raced. Sounds like conditions were awesome this year.
Anyone know what happened to Alex Howes? Just listened to the EC podcast with him and he had high expectations but finished at the bottom.
For sure a fun edition this year. I take mild offense 
at the people who said it wasn’t hot because I still got properly fried, but I don’t do well in the heat and it could definitely have been a lot worse in that regard. It paid to have made hay the first few hours when the sun wasn’t shining, that’s for sure.
Congrats to all who participated, you can be proud of that achievement. It is really fun to hear that some of you “met” during the race. And some of you are really fast!
My Garmin shows it hit 101 more than a few times during the day. I am guessing that was due to the heat reflecting off of the white gravel. It was nice early, but the sun def added to my suffering!
Long post race report - read at own risk.
We got back late last night and I’ve had a little time to analyze the race while it’s still somewhat fresh. After my 2nd attempt, I’m not sure I have any better perspective on the best way to execute this race. It was so different from last year, much more road race dynamics for the first third of the race. I came in with better fitness than last year, but the muddy conditions last year favored my style of racing where big group dynamics were out the window pretty quick. Anyway, I figured I’d get my thoughts down on paper since I plan to be back next year.
My high level race plan was to go pretty hard for ~4 hours to leverage group dynamics early and then settle into a manageable deliberate pace the rest of the day (and hopefully have some group help along the way). My other big priority was riding a clean race, so take a little extra wind/effort and let people bomb descents while I picked lines and rode those sections conservative. For the start, I was planning to stay with the front group until the first chunky section around 27 miles in and I was hoping things would settle down a bit as smaller groups formed. It turned out that groups did form at that point, but the pace did not settle much (first 40 miles were 21mph). So yeah, I burned a lot of energy for that first stretch but rolled into the 70 mile aid station feeling fresh/strong in 5th (age group). My wife is the best crew ever and I came out of the aid station in 3rd and I flip flopped between 2nd and 3rd the rest of the day. I imploded a bit about 7 hours in and I was struggling to hold 200 watts and having some minor stomach issues (and coasting every downhill), just figured I had blown the race and everyone would catch me. But, everyone was bleeding speed at that point and gaps stayed relatively constant. 1st place guy was at another level and beat me by over 40 minutes. Kudos to him.
I had a buddy (and a couple others) roll into the last water stop behind me at mile 187 and he had ridden a steadier race and didn’t get as caught up in the early day mayhem. I got on his wheel and recovered a bit and was able to take some decent pulls in the last 10 miles (it was cooling off also). So, I’m thinking I could have probably been a little faster following his steadier strategy and maybe could have gotten 2nd place, but not way I would have caught the leader. So, I really don’t know what to think. If I could do it again, I’d probably back off a bit earlier just to make the day less of a beat down, but it’s hard to say whether that would have been faster. It’s such an unpredictable race. Getting in the right group for can save a lot of time, but being in the wrong group can put you in the red quickly and eventually bleed more time than you gained. Sometimes the wrong group turns into the right group if you can hang long enough for others to get tired. Sometimes just riding steady in the aero bars was faster than the group which was surging every hill and then soft pedaling every descent. I like to have somewhat of a plan going into a race, but this race is so long and dynamic that in-game decisions are key.
What went well-
Aero bars - super helpful all day, even the first 40 miles. I was often sag climbing the rollers and then coasting in the bars back onto the group on the downhills. Even when I was struggling to hold 200w, I was still blowing by folks on the flats when in the bars.
Pit stops - For crewed stops, they were under 30 seconds each and I gain positions on both of my stops.
-no flats - there were a couple spots where I had to roll some really chunky stuff (and hold my breath), but for the most part I was really good about watching lines. Allowing a big gap to folks in front of you certainly wastes some watts, but it’s a good trade off compared to a big sidewall slash or wreck (I saw many of those).
What went poorly -
Start position - probably my biggest mistake of the day. I arrived at the start line ~20 minutes prior and couldn’t get anywhere near the front. Probably 500+ people in front of me. It took me 45 minutes of wasted energy to get to the front of the race. Huge rubber band effect on every corner and hill required big efforts way over threshold to gain/keep position. Just unbelievably stupid on my part, I thought it was much easier to slide into the corral late (must have been thinking of leadville where corrals are assigned).
Lack of chain catcher - I had only dropped my 1x chain once ever, but I dropped it again at the race on a downhill chunky spot. Almost ended my day when the chain kind of double-looped itself around the crank arm and would have been destroyed if I hadn’t noticed before trying to pedal. Ended up losing less than a minute sorting it, but I’ll be installing a chain catcher in the future.
-went too hard for too long at the start- Such a tough thing to judge and knowing when to back off is probably the most important execution decision for long gravel races. I decided I was going to race for the age group win as long as possible and hoped I had the fitness to settle back down to a reasonable pace, but I overshot it a little. I had an all time power PR for 2 hours at the start of a 12 hour race, probably not a good idea. When I hit a 7 hour power PR, the bottom fell out for a while. I thought I could do about .73 IF for 12+ hours after doing about .69 IF last year. I was at .78 IF after 7 hours and ended up at .72 IF for the entire race (11:47). I think I could have gone around .75IF if paced more steady, but still hard to say whether smoother pacing would have been faster.
Final numbers -
And a little hardware -
Same. I don’t think it registered below 80 once the sun came out all the way to the finish. I think I made a mistake with a black hydration pack during middle section that really seemed to suck in the heat as well.
I am in awe of someone doing .72 IF for 12 hours.
Ditto on the black USWE pack and heat. Drink mix was hot as soon as I left the CP, but it was WAY below 80 by the time I rolled across the line at 2:30.
For all the things that went right something with my HR was way, way, way off. HR for 20 hours was something like 145bpm average and it felt like it. Guessing it was an electrolyte/salt/anxiety thing, but going to have to dig into that one once my brain starts working again.
I’m from Texas and I got quite a few 90f+ rides in prior to the race, but I was suffering hard in the heat for a couple hours. As much as the low winds were nice, they sucked at times when climbing in that dead air and no cloud cover. There was a water station set up right before the “little” climb up from the lake, it was so nice to dump some water over my body before struggling up the hill. There were lifetime volunteers manning it, so I guess they anticipated some suffering that late in the race.
I knew it wasn’t that hot and made a mental note to adjust some things if I ever do this race on a really hot day. If it was 95f+, I can’t imagine what the dropout rate would be. I saw a lot of people laying out under trees trying to get cool.
I think you managed it well (and correctly). I went back and forth on the issue in my mond for quite a while leading up to the race and had planned to pull the rip cord early…but of course, didn’t.
There was an early split in the pack with the front group creating a small gap even before the gravel…I stayed in the second group on purpose but even then was putting out more watts that I had planned. Stayed with that group (or some factions thereof) for ~2 hours…averaged ~20mph and I had an IF of .85 (WAY higher than I wanted!)
But we banked a crapton of time and I was almost assured of hitting my goal of beating the sun at that point…my buddy wanted to top off his water at the first water station (mile 40), so we lost the group there but there were still plenty of other riders doing a similar pace to ride with.
Did the higher-than-planned pace cause or impact my stomach issues? I don’t think so becuase they developed so much later in the race (~mile 120). As I mentioned above, I think I just had too many calories in my gut and it shut down. And since I found new legs once I snagged a coke at the second aid station, I think it confirms my feeling (my stomach had settled down by then).
Awesome pace and power numbers you threw down…congrats on the hardware!!
We got to the corrals ~30 min before race timne…women were just going off when we got there. Ended up with a good start position, closer to the 10 Hour sign. Probably farther up than I wanted, but it worked out well. The start was WAY less chaotic than in 2019 I distinctly remember people just barreling into other riders on descents or water bed crossings and I experienced none of that on Saturday, even though the pace was very similar.
The temps almost felt better to me after noon when the sun burned off the humidity. But could also be because i was pushing less watts lol.