Congrats to Keegan on a fantastic pair of results.
Regarding doping controls for the Life Time Grand Prix events, VeloNews had a couple stories with details.
The drama with the feedzones in these races is ridiculous and as a nobody who is often at the pointy end of these races for the majority, I can tell you most of the big social media players who preach this stuff don’t give a **** about anyone other than their inner circle. This doesn’t apply to everyone but most of these guys who talk loud on instagram act entitled to a result every time. It’s super lame.
The feed zone in question was in the middle of an hour-ish long, exposed climb and if you didn’t have water there you were pretty screwed. I stopped there because I just ran 2 bottles and I think my elapsed time at the stop was less than 30".
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exactly my feeling when they we’re whining about aero or no aero bars at unbound. I just roll my eyes. Having the pros at these big gravel races is cool to see how impressive they are but the drama is just so dumb.
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that is capital “A” attacking!
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So you have a race and you have experiance and it is fine for everybody except for a few guys who want both… go for a race racing and go for the experiance with enjoying the route and stopping at feedzones but than leave racers to race like racers are not mad about your stopping…
I get the feeling Keegan doesn’t have a lot of respect for Stetina and is quite happily trolling the holier than thou “Spirit of Gravel”.
It was Stetina that emailed all the top Pro’s and asked them to not use aerobars.
(I think aerobars are dumb for group racing, but if they aren’t brave enough to make the damn rules “written”)
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When gravel first started getting popular a couple of years ago Pete and a few other washed up world tour guys were basically Gods and could dictate all the goings-on at a race and formed some sort of self-appointed authority on the subject. Now that it’s grown vastly in popularity and races have gotten much more competitive they’re finding themselves just as irrelevant as they were on the WT and it’s starting to bring out some undesirable character traits… too much whining. It’s either a race or its not… if you wanna call it a race then show up to compete. I love Keegan’s response on the whole thing… no better mic drop than to go out and make everybody look like fools two days in a row
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I thought the point of gravel races were the first to the finish wins, how you do it is solely dependent on you rather you have 20lbs of nutrition, aero bars or a MTB it doesn’t matter as long as its 100% human powered and you receive no outside race support.
This is why USAC is going to demolish the scene/feel whatever you want to call it. I dont want to race with a guy that has Aero bars, I also don’t have to race and I have zero entitlement to be there anyway.
I choose to race, because its awesome and its up to me to get to the finish line regardless of the race dynamics or how I plan my “race”
Seems like Stetina is bringing the convenient parts of World Tour racing with him, but he also seems to preach about leaving that all behind for the “spirit of gravel.” Haha. Children. Sounds like you got smoked bruh 
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I’m sorry but this is why I can’t take gravel seriously sometimes. The whole “sPiRiT of GrAvEl” thing and whining about tactics like this. It’s a race. If guys want to carry extra nutrition to not have to stop, that’s a strategy and whining about it just makes you sound like a child.
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300 watts for 6 hours is certainly impressive, but adjust those numbers for altitude and I think he’s got endurance power numbers that are in the ballpark to top WT pros. It’s hard to compare anyone to WvA, but if you adjust those Strade Bianche numbers for altitude and Keegan’s lower weight, his leadville effort is not far off. I believe Keegan also did around 300 NP for unbound (9+ hours), so that just seems to be his happy place all-day wattage. I won’t even speculate on the doping question at any level/discipline of cycling these days, but I hope they are all clean.
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He does get to dictate his output a lot more than during a World Tour road race. Especially given he’s the big cheese amongst right now.
I think Keegan could make it in just about any of the long duration disciplines don’t get me wrong he’s a absolute monster and right now everybody is seeing it. I don’t think he would necessarily want to go to being pack fodder again though unless the contract was too good to pass up.
Let’s not pretend he’s going to go across and be amongst the WvA, MVdP, Alaphalippe stage chasers.
He’s got it pretty good right now with such a big domestic scene. If that continues why would he change. I really want to see him against the very best endurance XCM racers again with his new found Choo Choo’s, but I don’t begrudge him one bit in staying king of the (American) hill as long as the LTGP series continues/the domestic racing warrants it.
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Does anyone else see the irony in a guy who just came over to gravel in 2020 acting like he is a gravel OG / Keeper of the Flame for gravel?
No, just me? 
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There is some sort of drug testing for the Lifetime GP athletes. I can’t remember which interview I heard it on, but one of the athletes mentioned it recently in an interview I heard. Otherwise, Leadville does not do drug testing for AG winners.
He’s definitely a prospect but he’s also only 21 - that used to be to young to compete at the TdF level. It’s will be interesting to watch him over the years.
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Does anyone know what happened to Sofia at Leadville and SBT? Did she finish?
She DNF’d at Leadville with a broken rim. SBT is not part of the Lifetime Grand Prix and I don’t think she was ever on the start list for it this year. Keegan and others did it anyway as part of Leadboat but it doesn’t buy them anything for Grand Prix standings.
Saw her walking down columbine road while pedalling up on my own mangled enve rim. There has to be more to this. The timing system indicates she didn’t make it to the goat trail.
