Speaking of people selling more bikes, I dunno if Hannah Otto floats around here at all but she’s killing it on IG recently - she’s got to be worth every dollar her sponsors are giving her.
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Yeah, it was in the finishing line tent. Nothing too different from what he posted on IG, but just the time and place isn’t ideal from my perspective. But my opinion doesn’t really matter, just playing monday morning bike racer.
I personally don’t like road race tactics in gravel races either, but that’s probably because the surgy nature doesn’t favor me. As much as I enjoy group race dynamics, a no-draft TT would probably net my best result. I’ll be hoping for mud and wind next year to rip things apart early and often…
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Payson constantly complains about other racers. His youtube race recaps (which I quite enjoy!) are always full of pointed comments about no one helping, footage of him yelling at other riders to close gaps, and extremely passive aggressive comments about team tactics.
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That video was pretty good…my biggest takeaway is that the mental strain has to be enormous for those guys. They are flat-out racing the whole time and your brain has to always be engaged. Fighting for position, looking for the right line, watching wheels, anticipating climbs, etc.
Looking forward to the final video with his commentary (which is usually pretty good…I like his stuff).
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Yeah, she clearly understands the playing field. If you are winning everything, you can do whatever you want and the sponsor $'s will still follow, but most of these folks have to build their brand to have any hope of making a decent living doing this stuff. And it sets them up well for post racing career.
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More contact here than in most crits. I saw Payson’s IG post about aggressive, tactical racing for positioning prior to the chunky sections and that is a lot more intense than I imagined. Gonna add that to the trainer motivation playlist and I don’t even race gravel!
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I’d call it machine learning, and while it’s somewhat of a black box, TR has said some things about it. Just curious, and to possibly add to what we know… in the one or two blocks of training before that estimate, were you reducing indoor interval workouts (or switched to all outdoor)?
You should have done Locos, over 100 on my Garmin for something like the last 70 miles.
Any idea how many calories you ingested?
I have been considering suspension because you can never make up time i.e. being faster on the rough/slow parts will result in an overall faster time even if I am a bit slower on the smother/faster parts.
Like aero, suspension probably makes more sense for us age groupers.
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I’ve been mostly outside this entire year, but I did reduce the number of formal/associated interval workouts the last month leading into unbound as I was tapering and getting much of my intensity from a few key warmup races. AIFTP is still doing a much better job of estimating FTP compared to Intervals.icu which has me at 282 FTP right now. I did about 280 NP for the first 2 hours of unbound, but I think Intervals is only looking at very short efforts to estimate FTP (which I’d argue has more room for error compared to looking at 4 - 6 hour efforts where the power curve is much flatter and you can’t fake fitness with anaerobic contributions). I’m not sure they look at anything over 30 minutes.
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I really think the extra cognitive burden (and the accompanying metabolic burden) for pros/elites in long races where conditions are constantly changing (like this, or the Glasgow road worlds) and you don’t have the benefit of a DS in your ear giving you information to help make decisions is under appreciated.
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90’s MTB making a come back! Will gravel “discover” 26 inch wheels next? 
Thanks, what I suspected.
Intervals has several estimation algorithms, and personally I’ve had to tweak the minimum duration. And then GoldenCheetah, and WKO. Overall they are all pretty good when fed enough max efforts. And this isn’t bullshit, but since 2017 I’ve been using what Nate described as the basis for the TR AI FTP estimation technique (Coggan’s 7 techniques). It works for me, really really well. I took some crap on the forum for saying that, back when TR was saying the ramp test was the most accurate way to estimate FTP. I’m still using WindWarrior FTP Estimation™ along with triangulation and feeling out the tipping point. Happy to see so many other people now using estimates.
interesting perspective! good points
Yeah, that was pretty nuts. So many sketchy moments where one little thing could have taken down 20 riders.
I generally find the AIFTP estimate close enough to base my workouts on.
But to get an accurate FTP (MLSS in my book) for pacing, I can dial it in very close with some over/under intervals or just feeling my way around the number. It’s also one of the few situations where I’ll wear a HR monitor. If pushing right above threshold, I’ll see HR creeping up and I can kind of play with the power until I see it level out. I can get it dialed in within ~5 watts using this approach, much more accurate than having a system speculate on what % of my FTP I can do for x minutes (which can change pretty dramatically depending on how I’m training). I’ve done lab testing before where they prick your ear constantly to watch the lactate start to spike, manipulating the power and sensing the threshold is kind of the same concept just by feel.
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ya. FWIW, I usually can get within +/-5W just doing tempo intervals at a specific HR. And then divide power by .85.
Yep. It will co-evolve with bigger tire clearance. Makes sense to add suspension when the tire is capable of taking the hits that the suspension is capable of absorbing.
I have 20mm suspension in the head tube of my Diverge. It works really well, and along with 47mm tires, I can ride meaningfully faster on rough descents than other riders who are otherwise faster than me.
This past weekend, I PR-d Cow Creek in Steamboat (I think you’ve ridden that) and was faster than my buddy for that segment, despite having to stop and backtrack to pick up an ejected bottle.
I guess the question for most of us amateurs is - if you’re going to have one gravel bike, what’s the best one to get? Maybe for most gravel rides, 2” tire clearance, with 2-4cm of suspension travel is tthe sweet spot?
Here is my post race statement.
Race time 11:15 for a top 40
Total ride time 11:00
Tss 600 KJ 9000 IF .72
This is my 2nd time doing Unbound I did it in 2021, the same north course and total time was 13:48 for 101st. Leading up to the race I have been fighting for the last 2 months on working on my familys large project and training. I never got a training week I could be happy with. I was able to get 2 100 mile rides in and my CTL was 80 2 weeks out. Last unbound prep I focused on big training days, and avoided all risky races. This year I wanted to race, I had been doing all crit training since I wanted to race with my friends more. I podiumed 2 of my 3 races in the 2 weeks prior to unbound so I had some high end form.
10 days out I cancelled my housing plans since it was not able to be rolling down the road. I asked my aunt and uncle to drive out to support me and took my 8 year old kid with me. I was supposed to work in Emporia all week, but wed 3 days prior to the race I called off 2 days.
I called a buddy and he let me sleep in a laundry room 1 mile from the start finish for friday night. My aunt and uncle didnt like the camp site in town and booked one an hour away. Slept at there camp site after a shake down ride thursday, and friday I drove my family around on the gravel roads for 4 hours. Not sure that was the best Idea, got a late shake down ride at 4pm friday and was stretching and felt a pop in my bad knee.
Woke up at 345 am saturday and ate breakfast and headed down to the start finish at 6am. Watched the pro men roll out and the pro women roll out. I sat around for 30 min and waited for the start of the race. The race rolled out and I moved into the spot I wanted to be at in the top 40.
I was just chilling watching people eat poop, talked to Jeremiah Bishop for a good 10 min. We hammered the first hard section at mile 25. I was just hanging at the back closing gaps, my goal was to not pull, but it was a faulty plan. Once someone crashed I had to close the gap. Mile 46 I think the 2nd hard section we made a right turn, and someone inspected the rocks on the hill and 10 of use got stuck behind it. Chase again and got back on. At this point I got my phone out and took a few photos. JB had a mechanical prior to that section, and I think the group was down to 40-50 guys.
2 miles from alma there was a climb and I figured I would chase on the down hill, that was a bad idea. I felt like the gravel was loose and on the right turn I came in way too HOT. I pushed the corner wide since I wasnt able to scrub enough speed off. There was a hole on the left side of the road and I ran into the hole and my left foot came unclipped and popped me out of the hole. I thought I was going to be life flighted 3 seconds prior to that.
I came into the first aid station top 30. I ended up not being able to find my support crew and had to call them that stop took 8 min. By the time I left I was solo. I got into a good chase group and we were ripping, of course I ran into an issue, I ran a 47 tire and only had 3mm of clearance. One of the down hills had minimal water but it had mud. Mud caused me to stop and use my water bottle full of calories to get the mud off the frame. I fixed this issue, but the fast group I was with was gone.
I settled into a own pace and started picking up riders. I didnt care at this point, I just wanted someone to sit on my wheel. I was starting to deal with knee pain when I would change cadence or have to ramp up power. Any hill involved me coming out of the saddle to lessen the torque on the knee. Somewhere in the next 10 miles Bishop and a group of guys catch me. After a few miles with them I ask Bishop if we are stopping for water, he said you always stop. I gave the guy my bottles to top off and he dumped what was 800 cals and 2g of salt out. That left me with 300 cals to go the next 40 miles.
I hung onto the group as long as I could, but I knew this was not going to end well. I made sure to stay at the back and conserve as much as I could. I would be the last rider sitting on my aero bars to just save as much as I could. Somewhere in this process I stepped away from the fast group and just got back to my own pace. The knee continued to throb and just keeping the same cadence kept me going.
I got into aid station in top 40. If my daughter was not there, I would have pulled the plug, my knee hurt to stand on. I asked a different crew for chain lube and advil, the squirt I brought was just a ball of wax and hopefully the advil would kick in. I got my first food in 2 hours and my first dose of caffeine since 5am. I just told my self I am at 9hour and my goal was sub 13 hours. I was going to be successful no matter which way I stacked this, and my daughter would get to see me push through some adversity.
I started filling my face with food, drank my bottles faster to try to catch up. My knee would cause me to clinch my jaw anytime I had to change cadence at this point. I was get into a good rhythm and just stay locked in. The good leg was putting in more work and I could feel a cramp when I went into threshold. I just kept pushing, kept in the aero position and kept moving. At this point no one had caught me in the last 80 miles, I caught someone who stayed with Bishop and he sat on my wheel and later came off. I would just try to hold 20mph to end the pain. Later 2 guys caught me and said they had been chasing me for 50 miles. I pulled as best as I could with them, but my cadence kept getting thrown off in the group and I couldnt push through the knee pain. Need less to say they caught me and they finished 5 and 6th in my age group. I wish I could have pushed harder
I got to the finish line and checked my phone for my daughter, and was told they were to tired to make it to the finish. I was alone with no where to go. Ran into a few friends from the pro field one gave me a hug and asked how it was, his race time was 20 min faster then mine. I peddled one legged to the laundry room to shower and decompress.
Could I have done better, 100% could have. My failures were bad ideas and bad plans compounding themselves and adding to much stress to my life to be successful at 2 large undertakings. Will I be back, I will consider it if I can get more stuff done in my personal life and be more focused on training.
Changes if I come back.
Solving my hot spot issues that caused blisters under the balls of my feet
shorter cranks to put less torque on my knee
maybe a different frame to handle the fat tire just for this race.
SOLVING MY SLOW PIT STOPS
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I really like my gravel bike, but for a 200 mile race it needs more clearance. I still had a mud issue with perfect weather. If I were to buy a bike right now it would prob be a rodeo TD4 or the new giant. I would also put aero bars and make the bike carry the hydration pack.
The factor ostro gravel is an amazing machine, but I should have prob ran a 38/40 tire in the back vs the 47 I ran.
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