He does have decent interviews. I can’t stand the way he chops up the interviews and makes ten extra click bait videos though I’m seeing less invade my feed now.
How does he get some big names? He only has 41k subscribers. Did have some inside connection in the sport? To me, he came out of nowhere last year. I think I first noticed him with the Lemond interview.
The accent. It’s rough.
Proof that high numbers don’t give you results. I’d like to know the numbers for the top 5, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are lower.
I’m not saying he’s a rookie because he’s not. He’s a hell of a strong guy, but numbers per se don’t mean victories.
Racecraft will have played a massive part of course. But, looking at the names at the sharp end of the results table, I wouldn’t be surprised if their numbers are higher.
Johnson is over 14 minutes down in ~4.5 hours.
That said, the next finisher was Lachlan Morton.
Alex Wild did 342NP and that got him 6th place. Matt Beers at 398NP (don’t forget he’s huge, though).
Pretty crazy numbers, particularly for a mass start race with a bunch of drafting and a bit of time descending. In the video with Keegan and Alexey after the race, Keegan said the climbing was “violent”, I can only imagine the watts these guys were doing on the climbs to end up at those NP numbers.
I’m not familiar with these guys. Is he close to Dylan’s size? Would that be a W/kg fairly close?
Huge numbers anyway, not trying to diminish it, it’s really impressive.
I have no idea whether Alex Wilde is heavier they Dylan or not, but he looks a little bigger. Matt Beers is huge for a guy who climbs as well as he does. I’ve seen a lot of speculation on his weight, but he’s got to be over 180lbs. Still, ~400np for over 4 hours? The cooling and fueling math is crazy at that kind of output.
Wild is around 68-70kg. So around 4.8-5.0 w/kg normalized. Beers is around 80-82 kg, so around 4.8-5.0 w/kg normalized as well. Dylan was around 4.6 w/kg NP. Solid numbers by all these guys. I’d guess 5.0 w/kg NP would get you in the top half of Paris Roubaix if not much higher assuming you don’t get dropped at the key sectors.
I believe I heard on a podcast that Matt Beers is 6’4" (1.93cm) tall and weighs right around 180 pounds (81.8kg). But he also said his FTP is close to 490 watts.
Sea Otter is super punchy so definitely boosts the NP numbers. That said I saw on Strava that Alex Wild had an average power of 295, which is even more impressive (in my opinion) considering how much descending there is on that course.
The majority of age group races essentially turned into a time trial as the hills just broke up any chance of packing up. The fact these guys were able to hang together throughout the race is just a testament of the depth and how close these riders really are!
very solid numbers. And yes, I agree. They wouldn’t be with the broom wagon.
Is this huge number a consequence of the nature of gravel racing and lack of teams?
I think its a lack of teams and just having dirt since it requires more watts to keep momentum up. I know my gravel rides typically show a high np than my average road ride…but I think more so the lack of teams.
I thought so. Gravel seems slightly more demanding, but the primary factor might be a lack of teams.
Depending on the “gravel” you’re on, it can be anywhere from hard packed dirt to horribly rutted to sand to babyheads. How much more demanding the surface is varies, but when it’s super chunky, sandy, or stuttery for miles on end, it can really beat you up. Especially on a very long ride.
Are these power numbers the norm for a gravel race? Sea Otter has over 10k feet of climbing in 90 miles. It was a very tough course… The difficulty and shorter length no doubt played a role.
He probably just needs wider tires. Should move to 4.5"
I’ve seen all my highest NP/AP numbers in gravel races (by a decent margin). If a road race and Marathon MTB race had a baby, it would look a lot like a gravel race. Drafting/group dynamics are still really important, but they are significantly reduced by the road surfaces and selective course features. The most similar type of racing is probably one day classics, but with a much higher percentage of the course being selective in gravel. All of this is very course dependent and some gravel races have long boring/easy sections just like road racing where it’s just a big peloton waiting for the next selection point.
I don’t know the sea otter course, but I saw a couple reports of “negative racing”, which typically means there were a lot of folks looking at each other not wanting to work on the non-selective sections. It’s normal/acceptable road race behavior, but it seems to really bug the guys who came from MTB where they just want the race to be hard all the time. It couldn’t have been going too easy with those power files…
I know lifetime is trying to make their gravel courses as selective as possible so that it doesn’t turn into road racing. It will be interesting to see if they change up Unbound this year after last year’s race had big packs and “negative racing” deep into the race. Even when it doesn’t favor me, I like selective gravel courses. I don’t want to be racing for hours in a huge pack, I never get comfortable in a gravel race until I’m in a group of ~20 or less. Just too much chaos when the packs are huge.
I really wish Life Time would add an ITT event. Not sure how they would get the logistics right as you could only really have 60 people starting an hour…
Clear indicator that power isn’t everything!
