 To put it into perspective, there are parts of this course that are so chunky that throes were having to get off their bikes and run and while I don't have any stats for you, I would venture to guess that about half the pro field gets some kind of puncture out there. Welcome back to the channel. This video is fueled by the feed. Big Sugar Gravel is a 100 mile or 160 kilometer gravel race in Bentonville, Arkansas, and is the final race in the Lifetime Grand Prix, which is the premier professional off-road cycling series in the US. Before we get into the race itself, let's talk about this course. I would say that the climbing on this course is a bit harder than rolling terrain. Many of the gravel roads here are deep in the woods instead of out in the open like at Unbound, and while the climbs aren't too long, there are some real killers out there. That being said, the climbs will probably not be the number one course feature on racers minds going into it, and that's because this race eats gravel tires for breakfast. This route is littered with extremely chunky, sharp, and loose gravel, and as such, punctures just seem to be a part of this race. I would say even more so than Unbound, which is saying a lot. To put it into perspective, there are parts of this course that are so chunky that throes were having to get off their bikes and run, and while I don't have any stats for you, I would venture to guess that about half the pro field gets some kind of puncture out there. You already know that this meant that I was overthinking my bike setup long before I showed up in Arkansas, and this is what I came up with. Oh boy. So for those of you who are new here, this is the part of the video where you can probably just tune out for the next, I'd say, two to three minutes. You'll thank me later. Yes, I could have ridden my drop bar mountain bike instead of my gravel bike and continued to annoy my fellow racers with talk about how superior this rig is, like I've already done for so many races this year. And I actually did do that last year at this race, but you have to keep in mind that the average speed for the race was likely going to be over 20 miles per hour or 32 kilometers per hour, meaning that aerodynamics is quite an important factor, no pun intended. And the drop bar mountain bike has a significant aero penalty when compared to my factor, Austro gravel. Now, the Austro gravel has a max tire clearance of 45 millimeters, but that's with 700 C wheels. For this race, I decided to go back to 2019 and try out 650 B wheels on my gravel bike for no other reason than I wanted to fit the largest size tires that I could into my frame and fork, both for improved puncture protection and for improved rolling resistance on the extremely chunky Arkansas gravel. Sure enough, 650 B wheels did mean that I could fit a continental race king 2.2 mountain bike tire in the front and a 48 renaissance knobby tire in the rear. And yes, that did mean that I had to perform the sin of having mismatched black and tan wall tires on my bike. I hope that one day the internet can find it within itself to forgive me. Also, when we're talking about renaissance tires, can we just agree to refer to them as the slick version and the knobby version? The fact that they have a different model name for every single size of the exact same tread pattern is a bit ridiculous. I went with their most puncture resistant casing, which is the endurance plus. This is not a very fast tire, and if I could have put the Conti 2.2 race king in the rear, I absolutely would have, but it is an extremely puncture resistant tire. And on this course, not fixing a flat is fast. And just to be on the safe side, I used almost an entire 32 ounce bottle of silica sealant between the front and the rear. I'm not joking about that. There were probably three or four ounces left of a brand new bottle of the most puncture resistant sealant on the market when I was done setting up my bike. Yes, I already know what you're thinking. This did make the bike a lot heavier and feel like total crap to ride. In fact, there was so much sealant in the rear wheel that I could actually feel it sloshing around if I was coasting down a paved road. Again, absolutely worth it to not be on the side of the road fixing a flat. You can be unlucky in these races or you can create your own luck. Whoa, ease up there, bro. The long list of mechanicals that you got during the race listed out in novel format on Instagram is actually part of the spirit of gravel. I was actually not the only pro to throw mountain bike tires on their gravel bike for this race either. Both Cole Patton and Tobin Orton Glad put 2.2 mountain bike tires on their gravel bikes for this race. And in my opinion, this is an obvious choice if you have the clearance for it. Sure, you can get away with lighter tires if you're riding here alone or at a much more leisurely pace, but at race pace in the incredibly aggressive pro field, you're kicking up dust and trying to follow wheels and hitting holes and sharp rocks blindly. And it makes having heavy duty rubber that much more important. All right, let's get into the actual race breakdown. The race starts with a five mile or eight kilometer neutral rollout, which may seem like a lot of neutral, but by that, they just meant that they were going to keep the lead vehicle under 25 miles per hour or 40 kilometers per hour on the road until we hit the dirt. This is not a time in the race to just chill out. There was a constant jockeying for position and the closer that we got to the dirt, the more aggressive it got. As we ramped up towards the dirt, I found myself probably halfway back in the Peloton riders, which is further back than I wanted to be. This opening neutral section required an NP of 317 watts for 13 minutes. So again, the race promoters are playing a little fast and loose with the term neutral there. Dude, tell me about it. 317 watts on a neutral, that's absolutely ridiculous. I mean, I'm not even getting into my neutral power zone until I hit at least 400. When we hit the dirt though, it was full gas for position and the gravel was taking its first casualties. Crashes were happening. My buddy Drew Dilman's cyclocross skills didn't do him much good out there and he went down right in front of me and saw his dreams of beating me in a gravel race flush down the toilet in an instant. Hey, look, if he hadn't put so much pressure on this showdown between the two of us all year long, I wouldn't be giving him such a hard time right now. And of course, flat tires were happening right and left as well. And while you do want to follow the wheel in front of you as close as possible for the aero benefit, I also didn't want to flat or crash. So I kept a reasonable following distance, especially on the downhills and tried to unweigh the bike every time things looked hairy. I will admit though that all of that is easier said than done when you're getting close to maxed out and struggling just to hold the wheel. And I was on my limit at multiple points in the first hour of this race. The first 30 minutes of dirt required an NP of 344 watts and the first 90 minutes required 330 watts. As we approached the first aid station at mile 36 or 58 kilometers, John Borsleman, who had been the main protagonist of this ridiculous pace, finally got clear of the field and went up the road and took with him Jonas Orset from Norway. With these two off the front, the pace finally eased up for a bit and we meandered along through the aid station and on the following road section at just 221 watts for 13 minutes. I think a lot of us were just trying to catch our breaths from that horrendous first third of the race. Now we get into the middle third of the course, which is probably the hardest of the race. The gravel gets chunkier, the climbs get longer and steeper and the downhills get scarier. We hit the first climb and it was a brutal push at 351 watts for seven minutes and the pace did not ease up after that. Three more climbs just like that one with 350 watt efforts repeated for six to seven minutes with some of the scariest descending on off camber, blind, chunky gravel corners, trying to hold the wheel in front of you at this point in the race, had me on my limit. And finally, at about two thirds into the race, I got popped from the front through. Fortunately, though, a bunch of riders got dropped at the same time I did, including Lawrence Tendam, Brayden Lang, Kony Looser, Kerry Warner, and a few others. And we were all now sitting right around the top 20 in the race. This section after the first aid station that cracked us was 40 minutes long in total and required an NP of 327 watts. Obviously, we didn't just give up at that point either. We continued to rotate through at 300 watts for another 25 minutes and before long, Alexi Vermeulen came by after having a flat. And honestly, we all just sat on his wheel for about 10 minutes, just dying in his draft before he finally dispatched us on a climb. By the way, Alexi would go on to catch the front group and then get third place in the sprint, which is absolutely mind blowing. Probably the strongest dude in the race, along with John Borselman, even if the results sheet doesn't show it. After getting dropped by Alexi, it was just me, Kerry Warner, Kony Looser, and Chase for remaining of our group. And it seemed pretty clear that all of us were on our limits. So we settled into a pace that we could manage and rotate it through. This meant just 267 watts NP for the next 37 minutes, which really goes to show how cooked we were at this point. When we entered the second aid station, though, I started to feel a second wind coming. And as I got my legs back, I started doing longer and harder pulls. We hit a series of back to back climbs, and I went back up to doing 314 watts NP for 15 minutes through them. On one of the steep pitches, Kerry Warner and Chase Work got popped from our wheel. And now it was just me and Kony together to finish out the last 20 miles or 32 kilometers of the race. And at this point in the race, after having caught a few riders, we were sitting in 19th and 20th place on the road. Kony was clearly hurting, but it was helpful to have him there to take some of the wind, and we decided to work together. He was in the hunt for the top 10 overall in the series, and his series rivals, Zach Colton, was likely the next rider on the road. Sure enough, with five miles to go, we saw Zach Colton on the side of the road fixing a puncture. If I was a smarter businessman or a skivier rider, this may have been a good opportunity to start negotiating with Kony for half of the prize money for the 10th place finish that he was going to get, but I didn't do that. As we rolled into town, there's one last pitch on the road where I did 415 watts for 90 seconds to drop Kony. Although to be fair, Kony had already told me that he wasn't going to sprint me, and I don't think he had any intentions of trying to beat me. He was just happy to be ahead of Zach, but I pressed on regardless because for some strange reason, one of my favorite things in the world is emptying the tank at the end of the race, even when there's no one ahead of me to catch or no real threat behind me. So that's exactly what I did. And in that last 10 minutes of the race, I managed 327 watts NP and came away with 18th place on the day, about 11 minutes down on the lead group that contested the win, but six minutes up on frenemy, Drew Dilman, who predicted himself for the win, but came up just short of that with a 24 place finish. Again, you brought this on yourself, man. I really didn't want to embarrass you like this, but you left me no choice. You know, Drew may have lost the race and all, but his smack talk is definitely better than yours. For the entire race, I had an NP of 302 watts, which is the highest normalized power that I've ever seen for five hours. My average power was 264, average heart rate 160, max heart rate 182, average speed 20.5 miles per hour or 33 kilometers per hour, 338 TSS and nearly 5,000 kilojoules. 18th is yet another result in the 15 to 20 range, which just seems to be my spot in the Grand Prix this year. I finished 17th at Unbound, 17th at Leadville, 15th at Chwamagin, 16th at the Rad, and 18th here. So at the very least, I'm consistent. And I actually am pleased with my performance at this race. I managed to have a clean race without any crashes or mechanical issues, which is saying a lot here, but there is a good reason for that. Just go back to the first five minutes of this video. Could I have held on to the front group for a bit longer with faster tires and a normal amount of sealant? Very possibly, but if I had to fix a flat tire early in the race like so many others did, then maybe not. That's part of the calculated gamble of gravel racing. Also, Cole Patton, who was also on mountain bike tires, ended up finishing in fifth place, which is his highest placing in a gravel race this year. And he was pushing the pace on every single downhill and forcing his competitors to make mistakes. Personally, I don't see myself showing up at Big Sugar on anything less than mountain bike tires in the near future. From a physical standpoint, like I said, I had my highest normalized power ever for five hours, so clearly the fitness was there as well. Alright, let's talk about how I finished up in the series overall and about my season as a whole, given that this was the final race. I came into this race sitting in 17th place, and the top 15 in the Grand Prix automatically gets selected for next year. And I knew that if I had a good race, top 15 was in the cards for me. So that was a goal of mine. Unfortunately, I just barely missed that mark, though, finishing in 16th place overall, just one point from the 15th spot. That being said, I'm actually incredibly happy with this season as a whole. 16th place is also where I finished in the Grand Prix last year, but it was undoubtedly a harder year to compete in this time around, partially because there were 35 riders to contend with instead of 30. But there was also heavy international talent that stepped in this year that was not in the series last year. For example, South African mountain bike national champion and Cape Epic winner Matt Beers, former Swiss marathon mountain bike national champion Coney Looser, former Australian gravel and mountain bike national champion Brendan Johnston, and so on. The 16th from this year means more to me than the 16th from last year. And while it is a mid-pack finish, I have to keep some perspective here and remind myself that this is mid-pack amongst an elite pool of the best racers in North America and even beyond at this point. And from a more objective numbers standpoint, this is also the fittest that I've ever been. I did my highest 20-minute power ever this year at 402 watts, I had my highest five-hour power ever, a huge PR at Leadville, and my power numbers in these races just keeps trending in the right direction, which kind of reinforces that all this science mumbo jumbo that I've been talking on this channel for years actually has some merit to it. The Dylan from five years ago, when I first started this channel, would probably be in shock at the level that I'm at right now. I mean, sure, but also in the last five years, I came into your life and introduced you to Hypergain Beast Mode, Mask Gain, or Raw Edition in the cupcake flavor. Coincidence? I think not. I do plan to do a video in the near future about how I train for this year and how I plan to change my training for next year, so be sure to look out for that. Maybe even hit the subscribe button so you don't miss it. If you want to follow my training and racing closer, be sure to check me out on Instagram. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a like, subscribe, and share it with your cycling friends. I'll see you in the next one.