 I apologize to him after the race for this, but the reason for this move was because alarm bells were going off in my head. We were losing ground on the front group, and if I waited even two more seconds to start pulling, we may never see them again. Welcome back to the channel. This video is fueled by the feed. If there were such a thing as monuments in US gravel racing, Mid-South would certainly be on that list. The race has been going on for 12 years, which doesn't sound like a lot, but that is very old by gravel race standards, and even though it's not a lifetime Grand Prix race, it usually attracts many of the biggest names in US gravel, and this year was no exception. In fact, and I know I say this all the time on this channel, this year had one of the most stacked and deepest pro fields in the history of the race. Look, at least when I do a race, I try to come up with different excuses for why I lost instead of just using the same one over and over again. The course is a lot like Unbound, with constant rolling hills on straight, wide-open farm roads. Only it's half the distance at 100 miles instead of 200 miles. The course is almost entirely off-road, with the exception of the start, finish, and midpoint aid station, and the gravel you get on this course is a mix of everything from very smooth and fast to chunky, to rutted out, and even potentially mud, depending on the weather. But this year was looking to be an exceptionally dry year with mild temperatures and perhaps most surprising, very mild wind. In Oklahoma and the surrounding states, the wind can be brutal, which obviously changes the dynamics of the race, but we weren't going to see much of that on race day. This meant the conditions really couldn't be better for making this one of the fastest additions of the race. And yes, that is what we call foreshadowing. There are a couple key sections of the course where you can easily lose the race by not being in a good position. The first of those comes at mile 12 with a creek crossing that has just one good line in the grass on the left side. You could just send it through the creek like Payson does here, but you risk hitting a deep spot, and of course your bike will be squeaky for the rest of the race after you just basically submerged it in mud water. Then there's this very rough double track section at mile 40 that is more like mountain biking than gravel riding. And finally, perhaps the most decisive section of the race, the two mile tight single track section at mile 90 with plenty of corners and minimal passing. With just 10 miles left to go, this is where the selection for the final group was made last year, and I knew going in it would likely be the same this year. So I made sure I had this section absolutely dialed leading into the race. Before we get into the race itself, I think I've got to address the bike setup that I was using for this race. For those of you who don't know, Felt is my new bike sponsor for 2024. And the bike that I'll be doing most of my racing on this season is their breed carbon gravel bike. I'm not going to go into too much detail on the bike right now, but don't worry because a full bike check video is coming in the near future. For now, I think I'll just address one of the most glaringly obvious differences between my bike setup and what everyone else ran for mid self. No, I'm not talking about the aero chainring cover or the aero front brake rotor or the aero bottle on the down tube or even the cable routing that got so many of you heated on my Instagram. All right, I'll admit there's a lot of glaringly obvious differences between this bike and what most people run for gravel racing. But come on, it's a Dillon Johnson video. What did you expect? Obviously, we're expecting you to talk about the tires. I'm actually talking about the tires, which are Continental Race King 2.2 mountain bike tires, not gravel tires. On these Reynolds 60 black label wheels that have a 21 millimeter internal rim width, these tires come in at 53 millimeters. And as I've discussed in depth on this channel before, there is actually a rolling resistance advantage to running lightweight mountain bike tires over gravel tires because the increased volume means that the tire manufacturers can get away with using a thinner casing. And in general, a thinner casing means less rolling resistance. At the risk of doing too many teasers in this video, there will also be a video coming in the near future about the optimal tire size for gravel racing. So I'm sure that subscribe button is looking awfully tempting right now. Anyway, the ability to run these massive tires is in my mind the biggest advantage of felt's gravel offering. And I hope you all know me well enough to know that that is not the sponsorship talking. There are very few companies that make a race focused gravel bike with this kind of tire clearance. And before this, I was having to resort to using a drop bar mountain bike for certain races in order to fit the tires that I wanted to run. I still do think that a drop bar mountain bike is a good option for some tamer mountain bike courses like Leadville, but for rougher gravel races, this bike has completely killed the need for me to try to turn my hardtail into some sort of makeshift jury rig version of a gravel bike. Well, you all know that I could talk about tires all day, but let's not forget that this is a race report video. So let's go ahead and jump into how the race played out. This race did not take long to get up to speed at all. And that's likely because we all knew that a critical pinch point in the race was coming at mile 12 with the creek crossing. So the battle for position started almost immediately. Unsurprisingly, the opening 30 minutes leading into the creek was the hardest of the race, requiring an NP of 343 watts. This was just to stay in the pack, too. I didn't hit the wind once during this time. And to be honest, positioning going into the creek wasn't even that good as I was probably sitting about 20 riders back. And by the time I hit the grass, riders were already bottlenecked and having to get off and run. After the creek, a gap had formed with a front group of eight strong riders out ahead pushing the pace. And I knew that if we hesitated at all, the group would be gone. And the race for the top spot would essentially be over in the first 15 miles. The next four and some change minutes were a brutal push at nearly 400 watts to regain contact. And when we did, the front group was now up to about 40 or so riders. For the next hour of the race, the group just rolled at a nice steady tempo requiring about 300 watts NP. But then we hit the double track and all hell broke loose again. Given the technical nature of this section, big gaps started to form between riders. I didn't think I was in terrible position, but in hindsight, I should have been at the very front going into the section. Because I did have to do a bit of work with the help of some other riders to catch back on after this section, requiring 323 watts for over 17 minutes. At the halfway point at mile 50, I decided to take off my gloves and shoe covers for some reason. Well, I do know the reason the temperatures were starting to warm up a bit. I was thinking, it should take me 30 seconds total. I'm sure the group won't be drilling it through the feed zone. So I'll probably be fine. I was flat out wrong. As I explained in my last video, the spirit of gravel is fully dead at this point at the pro level in the US. And this is just one more example of that. Dude, if the spirit of gravel is dead, then why am I seeing way too many flashes in the pro field? I think you just want it to be dead because you've got the facial hair game of a middle school boy who just went through puberty. Gone are the days of making sure everybody has everything they need from a feed zone before stepping on the gas again. If anything, I think some riders are now using dropping riders at an aid station as a tactic. Do I fault them for it? Not one bit. I actually enjoy that there's a little bit more strategy to the feed zone stop, kind of like pit stops in motorsports, even if it does make those stops more nervous and hectic. Getting back to the race, though, after stopping to shed clothes at the aid station, I had to burn a few more matches just to catch back onto the group again at 370 watts for the next four and a half minutes. In hindsight, I should have just kept those extra clothes on. It absolutely would have been worth it to be a little overdressed to not have to do this effort, but now I'll know for next time. And the pace simply did not let up in this race. Over the following 45 minutes, I still had to maintain an NP of 300 watts to stay in contact with the group as we hit various sections of the course that kept shelling the group like deep sand or extremely rutted out farm roads. By this point in the race, that group of 40 that had made it past that first creek crossing had shrunk down to about 15. This race, much like most gravel races, was a race of attrition, meaning that instead of a big peloton chasing a breakaway like you often see in road racing, there's just one main front group and riders are constantly being dropped from that group throughout the race. And the win is decided by those riders who survived all the way to the end. There were some riders that tried for some sort of breakaway, but they never got much room. That being said, we were fastly approaching the most decisive section of the course, the single track at mile 90. We all knew that this was a good spot to break the group with minimal passing, so positioning would be key. Unfortunately, my sprint into the single track was not great. And I ended up about 10th wheel sandwiched between Pete Stetna and Drew Dilman. Once you get into the single track, there's simply not an opportunity to pass with the exception of the very end where it turns into two track. So I expected that a big effort was going to be needed to catch back on afterwards. And I mentally prepared myself for that. Luckily, I had a few riders to work with, including Alex Howes, Pete Stetna, Nicholas Roach and Drew. But most of the work to catch back on was done by me. And you can even see me get a little desperate to get to the front and try to shoot for the middle, but having to go into Stetna's line. I apologize to him after the race for this. But the reason for this move was because alarm bells were going off in my head. We were losing ground on the front group. And if I waited even two more seconds to start pulling, we may never see them again. Catching that front group was a tall order and required 345 watts for 10 minutes at four hours into the race. I was relieved to regain contact. And now we had a group of eight containing Pete Stetna, Griffin Easter, Torbjorn Road, Russell Finsterwald, Nicholas Roach, John Borselman, Payson McKelvin, Drew Delman and me. Torbjorn attacked and Griffin followed soon after this, though, and got clear leaving the rest of us to chase. Well, most of the rest of us. Russell and Torbjorn both ride for the Trek Driftless team, meaning that with a teammate up the road, Russell had a legitimate excuse to sit on the back of the group and not help with the chase. Again, this is something that would not fly back in the spirit of gravel era from about 2018 to 2021. Road racing tactics were seen as ruining the spirit of gravel. Now, with professional teams making their way into gravel racing, this has apparently become part of racing. Fortunately, though, even without Russell's help and Payson getting a flat tire and dropping from the group, it was still five against two. So we did manage to make the catch, which took about 330 watts for 12 minutes. Sure enough, as soon as we made the catch, the counterattack came by Russell, but I managed to latch onto his wheel immediately and shut it down. I looked around and realized that Drew and Nico Roche had been dropped in the chase, meaning that the front group now only contained six riders. And I will admit, I was fully cooked at this point in the race. And being that we were less than three miles from the finish, I was just begging for the attacks to be done with. I was wincing at the thought of having to close more attacks with this much fatigue in my legs. Unfortunately, though, my wish would not be granted. I'm pretty sure that in the last two miles of the race, I was the only one of the six riders remaining to not attempt an attack. But honestly, my memory is a little bit hazy. Being in the red isn't great for processing information. All I know is that somehow I made it onto the final finishing stretch with less than 1000 meters in the race remaining, still attached to the front group and still in the fight to take the win. With about 500 meters to go, knowing that he doesn't have a great sprint, Pete Stetna made one last-ditch effort to try to attack the group and butcher the sprint for the rest of us. But that was quickly closed by John Borstelman and heading into the sprint. I was actually positioned very well right on Borstelman's wheel and with Torbjorn right behind me fighting for that second wheel spot. Despite this, I just didn't have the legs in the sprint after such a brutally hard race and only managed a pretty pathetic 864 watt max. But in the last minute of the race, I was at nearly 500 watts with Stetna's attack. And the last nine minutes were just under 340 watts after over four hours of racing. Torbjorn took the win, Gryffin Easter was second, Borstelman third. And then, according to the results, Russell just nipped me at the line in the photo finish to take fourth, leaving me with fifth. But I'm going to be honest, when I look at the side shot and the footage, it looks like my front wheel does hit the line before his does. But maybe you can be the judge of that. Now, I think I actually do know what happened here. And it's an instance where my obsession with marginal gains actually went too far and came back to bite me in the ass. Yeah, given the atrocious aero body condom that you decided to wear, I would say that you took it a little too far well before this point in the race. This race uses chip timing and the chip is on your number plate. Yeah, I did the aero number plate technique of taping my number plate to my frame instead of putting it on my handlebars where it's supposed to be, meaning that it was about five inches back from where it normally would have been. This is an extremely aero solution. And in fact, we actually tested it in the wind tunnel and over the unbound distance, it would probably save around 10 minutes, so around five minutes over the mid-south distance. That's of course, if you were hypothetically doing the course solo, but there is also a substantial watt savings. However, in the event of a sprint finish, your number and therefore your chip is further back on your bike, meaning that if it's this close, you're going to get the short end of the stick. All of that being said, I'm not too upset about it. Whether I got fourth or fifth, both wouldn't have made the podium and both are still a top five. And now I've got another factor to think about for number placement. All right, let's see some numbers for the whole race, shall we? We've got 309 normalized in 264 average power, 1134 watts max power, which was actually hit in the sprint for the single track, not the sprint at the finish, 22.6 miles per hour or 36 kilometers per hour average speed, which for a gravel race is absolutely cooking. And by the way, was the fastest average speed and time ever recorded for this race? And finally, 4,260 kilojoules and 306 TSS. Now, I certainly have placed higher at national level gravel races before. I've gotten second at BWR North Carolina and fourth at BWR Utah, and I have won local level gravel races. But I think that when you take into account the depth of the field here at Mid-South, this may just be the most impressive and biggest result of my career so far. And it comes as a little bit of a surprise to me, if I'm being honest, because it's so early in the year and I was not peaking for this race by any means. And it's not like I just got lucky or played it really smart to get that finish either. The fitness is there and then some with the highest power output I've ever seen for this duration, which happens to be six watts higher than what I did last year. And this really shouldn't hold any weight with anyone because it's just an anecdote. And I get so frustrated when people point out that fast people use a certain equipment, so therefore that equipment must be the fastest. But this result was achieved with mountain bike tires. 2.2 mountain bike tires in a gravel race. As the average person at the race what they're running, and I'd say it would range from 40 to 45 millimeters. The race kings are a good 10 millimeters bigger than that, depending on which rims you pair them with. For now, that's just food for thought, but I should have some more concrete answers on whether or not these tires are in fact faster for gravel racing in the near future. So be sure to stay tuned for that. If you want to stay more up to date on my racing in real time, 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.