That’s fine and I don’t necessarily disagree with it, but some of her suggestions are 100% against what this series is. Like she wants Leadville to be shorter for the women? What? Cap Unbound at 100 miles? Why? This is a marathon mtb/ultra distance cycling series. These are supposed to be all day, kick your ass events. Capping it at 4hrs like she says would take away one of the defining characteristics of these events. If she wants more dynamic pack type racing, she can go to riding road. Same with scrapping the mass starts. These were mass start events before the pros show up and they’ll be mass start after the pros move onto the next shiny discipline. As for prize money, the Grand Prix already has the highest payout, by far, of any US series.
Keep in mind Alex did do Marathon Worlds on September 17th, while skipping out on Chequamegon and Big Sugar, so I suspect that didn’t sit well with the LT organizers. Big Sugar in particular was a major focus for LT and they seem to be doubling down on Bentonville really wanted all the GP athletes there for the finale.
Regardless, Alex seems to be using the snub as a motivational tool this year which is probably the best thing to do as an athlete. It will be interesting to see if he can hold strong throughout the season this year. Physical and mental health are a major part of the game for elite athletes and both need to be in sync to compete at the highest levels.
I’m surprised to hear this in relation to her wanting shorter races for the women. Seems really strange and not what I would expect from her. There has been a push with other events to make the women’s races the same length as men’s from an equality standpoint. I would be really disappointment if the women’s races got shortened in the GP.
What is good is we are starting to see the development of some interesting personalities coming to the front with the riders. THIS is what Lifetime needs to market and capitilize on. People love story lines and when you look at other sports its always those things that drive that sport to bigger levels. Tiger Woods did it for golf, Jordan, Kobe, Lebron in the NBA, McGregor and Rousey in the UFC, the Williams sisters in tennis, and, of course, Lance for cycling. While we can’t expect things to grow to those levels, there is a real opportunity here if handled well. Grow the sport, grow sponsor dollars, grow the events, and then get more of the dollars in the athletes hands. I would love to see that happen.
Wonder if the main sponsors of their teams (Santa Cruz and Specialized) would keep this from happening? I know Keegan and Morten don’t have the same sponsors, minus Rapha, but Cannondale is kind of a sub sponsor of EF.
Are you classifying burnout as a mental illness?
It’s not a mental illness in the sense that it’s a distinct disorder found in the DSM, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to argue that someone suffering from significant burnout is mentally well (I say this as someone who has both been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and has also suffered from burnout). Burnout goes a lot deeper than simply just being tired of what you’re doing, and if you suffer from other issues (like anxiety or depression), things can snowball. I don’t know what Alex’s specific situation was like, and I’m not attempting to make any assumptions about it because it’s not my business, but I do know that as a society, we tend to be far less understanding when someone’s illness or injury is mental and not physical.
Burnout CAN go deeper but does not mean it necessarily does.
I don’t know Alex or if he’s discussed mental health issues. And don’t know lifetime’s view of factoring in mental health.
I would be surprised if lifetime does not factor in skipped races no matter what they say.
Pon Holdings owns owns Cervélo, Focus Bikes, Cannondale, Schwinn, GT Bicycles, Mongoose, Caloi, IronHorse, Gazelle, Kalkhoff, Union, and Santa Cruz Bicycles, so same parent company for both Keegan and Morten. Recently Pons also bought Mikes Bikes who was Specialized main dealer network out here in California and the Western US. So I wouldn’t count on any pairings between factory riders from those parent companies teaming up any time soon.
No offense to Sophia but she tried racing the World Cup and she was pack fodder. Now they limited how many racer can be in World Cup races she’d likely be outside the cutoff. Lifetime is probably her only option from a compensation standpoint.
There’s no doubt that if she wanted, Sofia could make it back into the World Cup again.
I think you’re right in that her best chance of success and making decent money is with the longer races, and specifically in the American scene which, with LTGP is rapidly growing in strength, is still a step or two below the pinnacle of the sport.
I pay attention to the series, but the whole thing feels a bit off. They tried and failed to broadcast the events, so it’s left to sporadic updates on instagram and maybe a recap documentary 6 months later. The riders risk a lot in terms of opportunity cost in training and their personal safety for seemingly very little in long term gain unless you are 1-2 riders that can dominate the series and make a name for yourself. It seems less a competition and more a social media influencing activity that occasionally involves an organized bike race. Perhaps that’s the point though since the main goal seems to be driving more people to sign up for Lifetime’s very expensive series of events (guilty 
)…
It’s a tough balance for the likes of Unbound etc. They claim to have the vest gravel racers, yet don’t attract the best cyclists in the world via a prize purse. However, if they did, they’d get blasted by the gravel community etc as “sell outs” or some such nonsense.
No excuse for Sea Otter or Leadville.
At least this year they aren’t making the athletes pay their own entry. That’s ridiculous.
Coverage on the other hand is a fine balance. Particularly for the women’s field. It’s so spread out and messed up with the pro and amateur men that it’s hard to give them the spotlight they deserve.
I think it’s an open secret that the series is somewhat of a minor leagues compared to UCI road/gravel/mtb events. For some that is a feature and for some that’s a bug.
It’s also tough when the racers themselves are not upset about it.
Listening to the latest Bonk Bros (may have been Matchbox) Pod and Dylan was absolutely fine with no prize purse due to the exposure available to the winners of Unbound. I know those three are intensely naive on some things, but it’s going to be hard for athletes to demand their true worth when there is a subset of athletes with that attitude.
Social media influence is a big part of being a sponsored athlete at any level these days, but there’s still something to be said for the meritocracy that is a prize purse.
People were flocking to these races, and the fields increasing in size, and the bigger names getting involved, without the big purses. Presumably, it was the competition, the venue, the people/organization, and the challenge, that drew them in. All those “spirit of gravel” things. It wasn’t the purse.
What has changed is the big purse, and the exposure, of Lifetime being involved. But the LGP series is really just a race within the existing races. How much have the races, aside from the small percentage of the field that are involved with the LGP Series, otherwise changed? Evidently the purses haven’t changed much. They are getting more exposure, but seems like people aren’t satisfied with that. I still like to get my coverage from the youtube guys showing their insider vids, and the POVs. Does the community really want these cool, homegrown races to get fully involved with Lifetime and go bigtime? To me, that’s a bridge too far (just from an observer/fan point of view).
Some may but I suspect many do not. But I also feel like there are only so many races that have something truly unique about them to attract a larger field.
I’m with her on prize purse for the individual events. When I realized only 2? of the 7 events have any purse, I was shocked. Yeah, there’s a decent payout for the top places overall, but that’s a big bet to make and a long time to go without income (yeah yeah, they should have sponsors, but still).
I wish they did more frequent recaps. Getting them all after the season was done was a bit of a let down last season. I did watch them, but would have preferred to have each episode release closer to the event. I can’t blame LT for doing it whatever way makes sense for them, I just want more content than random IG photos and mini-vids.
Yeah, I think that is reasonable…there is certainly enough time between events to get an episode out, I would think.
However, waiting until the series is over may give them better narrative control as they can focus on the overall trends through the entire series. Sometimes the overriding story lines can take a few events to develop.
I suspect the main change is that demand for the events is even higher = $$$$. Although getting into Unbound before was already a gong show and the actually race day was no different.
Also the awkward situation where someone not in the LGP wins Unbound and we have to pretend they don’t exist 