The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

The Best Mountain Bike for Leadville Trail 100 for "Regular Racers", First Timers, and Fast Finishers (#240)

• CTS • Season 5 • Episode 240

Share episode

Overview
We love checking out what the pros are riding, but "normal" riders aiming to finish the Leadville 100 MTB in under 9 hours or under 12 hours have different needs on race day. Ten-time LT100 finisher, coach, and author Jim Rutberg talks with 3-time finisher Adam Pulford about the best bikes, equipment choices for the 2000+ riders behind the race leaders. And, since they're both coaches, they throw in a bunch of training, nutrition, and race strategy tips as well.

Key topics in this episode:

  • Challenges of Leadville 100 course
  • Is Leadville a drop-bar bike course?
  • Best Bike Setup for Leadville 100
  • How much suspension do you need?
  • Bottles or hydration pack?
  • What about a hardtail MTB?
  • Wheels and Tires for Leadville 100
  • Crank length for mountain biking
  • MTB, Gravel, or Road shoes and pedals?
  • Training and Nutrition tips for Leadville 100

LINKS

ASK A QUESTION FOR A FUTURE PODCAST

Guest
Jim Rutberg has been an athlete, coach, and content creator in the outdoor sports, endurance coaching, and event industries for more than 20 years. He is the Media Director and a coach for CTS and co-author of several training and sports nutrition books, including Training Essentials for Ultrarunning with Jason Koop, Ride Inside with Joe Friel, and The Time-Crunched Cyclist with Chris Carmichael. A graduate of Wake Forest University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Exercise Physiology, Jim resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his two sons, Oliver and Elliot. He can be reached at jrutberg@trainright.com or @rutty_rides on Instagram.

Host
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly 20 years and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform

GET FREE TRAINING CONTENT

Join our weekly newsletter

CONNECT WITH CTS

Website: trainright.com
Instagram: @cts_trainright
Twitter: @trainright
Facebook: @CTSAthlete

Speaker 1:

From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now on to our show. Now onto our show.

Speaker 1:

What's the perfect bike for the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race? That's a common question for anyone dreaming of doing the race and a hotly contested debate for those having raced it before. But with so many mountain bikes on the market out there from XC to downcountry enduro, all mountain it's easy to overthink it. Choose right, and you'll increase your chances of having a good day out there. Choose wrong, and you could just be fighting your bike for 100 miles instead of getting that belt buckle or simply enjoying the race across the sky. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and today we're breaking it all down for endurance, mountain bike setups what bike actually gives you the best chance of success at Leadville Full suspension or hardtail, drop or post or not? And how do the demands of this high altitude endurance race shape your setup?

Speaker 1:

To help answer these questions and more, I'm joined with Jim Ruttberg, author, bike racer father and the guy who really makes this podcast happen. Jim, or Ruddy as we like to call him, has been around the Leadville scene for years and we'll talk about how many times he's actually raced this thing, but we're going to be talking about and picking his brain on the best bike setup here. So ready, welcome back. Hey, thank you, yeah, so, um, I don't know. Straight to the point, what bike is the best setup for for Leadville? Just shooting right down the hip here.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, the the reason that you and I talked about doing this podcast was that we were looking at, um, you know, other content that was out there, and we actually got a question from one of the CTS coaches who has an athlete who is going to be doing Leadville, and they said, hey, you know what, what should I recommend for this athlete who's going to do it for their first time? And the comparison between the content that's out there, which is awesome, really great content, and then what really works for the, the regular athletes. So, and then what really works for the regular athlete. So, you know, we have the content out there from the pros, essentially, and here's everybody's race set up, etc. But then there's 2,000 other people who are behind the pros and what are they racing?

Speaker 2:

And so the trend right now is, you know, is it drop bar, is it minimal suspension, is it the aero component of doing Leadville in six hours or something like that? And then you go well, yeah, but for a normal person who's either just trying to finish in 12 hours or they're going to be sort of in the middle of the group in 10 hours, or they're going for a sub nine, that setup and that scenario is very, very different than if you're going for six hours or you're really trying to um, you know, go at the very high end of the of the tech spectrum, yeah, yeah, and with that I mean it's like to answer the question, uh, and to do it justice, it will take a full podcast because there's that many variables that actually go into it, including just the demands of the event itself.

Speaker 1:

So I would say let's let's maybe first talk about that and kind of drum up the fear inside people of those who have actually registered and don't know what they registered for. Then we'll kind of like segue into the best setup and I'll just like roll through my, my opinion, um, from times I've raced it, and then we'll talk about some fueling, we'll talk about training, because of course got to give some tips out there. So now, how many times did you do it? Uh, I've, I've only done it three, as opposed to yourself, who has done it.

Speaker 2:

So you have. You have your proof of your, your proof, in the behind you there right here, right next to my Breck. Epic belt buckle Right, and then that's the sub-nine buckle so you're a fast guy.

Speaker 2:

I was not very. I have one sub-nine, but this was my proof of expertise, so to speak, or the 1,000-mile buckle for 10 finishes and I have to get to, uh, get to, however you want to phrase it. Um, race Leadville again this year because my son is riding his first as an 18 year old and, um, he's always wanted to race Leadville with me as cause. He was in the pits when I was doing it as when he was a kid.

Speaker 2:

So he got in and I was like, oh shoot, now I got to ride Leadville again. Um, so I will be at least on the start line with him. I'm going to be nowhere near him anywhere during the race, but uh, theoretically we'll be racing Leadville together. You got to get your training on.

Speaker 1:

I know, well, that's awesome. Yeah, I didn't know that you were going to ride it again. So good luck to you and uh and Oliver. Um, yeah, so Leadville, it's a wild beast and I I throw some shade at it because it's gotten so big and it's it's legendary for its own right, but I've never you never have an easy day at Leadville, and the reason for that is it is so hard, but the environment is so challenging. It's it's high altitude or extreme altitude, according to how we gauge things as exercise physiologists. So how high are we talking here?

Speaker 2:

Anywhere from minimum of about 9,500 feet up to 12,600 feet, um, and you have multiple passes within that.

Speaker 2:

So the the sort of base elevation is right around 10 and then you go up above 11 once or twice and then up to 12, six, um, so yeah, it's, the altitude is a challenge.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think to your point of kind of people either downplaying Leadville sometimes, um, they'll say, well, it's really not a mountain biker's course, it's kind of a dirt road with a smooth line in. It is a lot of times how I've kind of phrased it because it's not a highly technical mountain bike course for the most part. However, when you have to ride any of those conditions for that many hours and at altitude and with the weather and with 2,000 other people, it can get quite challenging. And, as you said, it's similar to. You know, we talk a lot about ultramarathon and some of the other sports that we've coached athletes, for it has more in common sometimes with those sports because it's a hydration, nutrition challenge, it's a pacing challenge, it's a mental challenge. The writing itself is not maybe the biggest uh challenge of the of the event, it's everything else that goes into it yeah, yeah, spot on.

Speaker 1:

And I think too, it's like it long, right, like nine hours is fast, right, so in the way of the ultra endurance I mean it is. It is very challenging, um, and even at the fittest of like fit years ready, where you went sub nine maybe that wasn't your fittest year, but like was it still hard when you were at your fittest maybe that wasn't your fittest year, but like, was it still hard when you were at your fittest?

Speaker 2:

The thing that was most surprising to me was that I did. I rode the race 10 times and I there were a number of years where I was in that sort of just over nine hours, somewhere between nine, 10 and nine, 20, something like that. The effort required the one year that I went sub nine was exponentially harder. To go 20 minutes faster, like I don't think it's a matter of incrementally more difficult, I turned myself inside out just trying to get under nine hours. Where had I had a relatively, you know, not easy, but had the effort required to do nine? 15 versus eight, 46 was night and day.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and in two to shape up some of the like. If you've never raised the altitude before, I think a lot of people have maybe taken ski vacations where they go skiing in Breckenridge or or veil or something like that, and those are going to be around that same kind of 9,000, 10,000 feet, maybe at the base of the mountain. You might take the gondola up a little bit higher, but even walking steps right, you walk in the steps of your condo at 9,000 feet people get out of breath. Now you have to ride your bike for a hundred miles on a mountain bike and it's super challenging. So in that way, yeah, it's not technical relative to BC bike race or Breck Epic or some of these other things, but it's my opinion, not a drop bar sort of bike course.

Speaker 2:

It's only a drop bar bike course if you are really truly going for a top 10, top 20 overall kind of finish. And I think when you look at the Keegan Swenson's Dylan Johnson sort of that level of rider.

Speaker 2:

They're going so fast that aerodynamics is really a challenge because, um, it's a hundred miles and a lot of the of the course is flat, uh, the, the all of those flat road sections, dirt road sections, between the big climbs, you've, in order to do a six hour, six and a half, seven hour Leadville, you've got to be hauling at the on those sections. Leadville, you've got to be hauling at the on those sections, um, and what used to happen is that, uh, people just struggle to get low enough, um, on a flat bar bike, so they're all, they're tucked as far as they can go and it's uncomfortable and everything. I mean you used to see the folks with their, you know, holding onto the four crowns, which I always thought was insane. Um, you know, holding onto the fork crowns which.

Speaker 2:

I always thought was insane. Um, but people would, would try it. Yeah, and I think the drop bar component for um for Leadville really is more of an aerodynamics thing. Like you, you the control aspect isn't so dramatic because the course isn't so technical that you can't control the bike with a narrow drop bar. Um, and the ability to comfortably get into a lower position and more aerodynamic position is worth the effort at that point.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I guess for the pros at the tippy tippy top, sure they can do that. There's still, there's still some flat bar people in the top 20. So it's not like flat bars are slow. Still, there's still some flat bar people in the top 20. So it's not like flat bars are slow. And I think too and I think you'll agree with this is like 99% of the people listening to this podcast. My recommendation is should not be on drop bars, not be on drop, but they should be on a proper mountain bike. So let's talk about what that proper mountain bike setup looks like.

Speaker 2:

So here's the crux of it. The biggest thing I think that cripples people during Leadville is their back, is the core strength, fatigue and whether or not your back is able to handle the the uh rattling and the rough course. So if your back fatigues to the point that you just have zero power left because your core is so worked that you're just done or you're sore and you have to constantly sit up and stretch and get off the bike and all these kinds of things, that's what I think takes people from a sub nine to a nine, 30 or 10 hour finish and it's what takes definitely takes people from a 10 and a half or 11 hour finish to a.

Speaker 1:

I didn't finish at all, yeah, so comfort right, the, the, the bike that feels the best is is well, there's more to it than that, but that's going to sit more to it than that.

Speaker 2:

But I think that one of the things that I mean this is the reason why you started out asking sort of what is the perfect bike for Leadville? For 99% of the people I would say a cross country dual suspension is your best bet, certainly if you're trying to finish and you're not certain that you're going to finish. So anybody who's aiming at kind of a 10 plus hour ride, I would say should be on a dual suspension cross country rig.

Speaker 1:

Fully agree. So a little bit more on. That is full suspension. You should be looking at like a hundred to 120 mil of travel upfront, maybe 75 to a hundred mil in the rear. So that would look like the like the S works, uh, world cup. I think that's the latest one with its 75 mil. The Giant Anthem, for example, that would be another one. The Canyon Lux, the Lux Cross-country Will work Bikes like that.

Speaker 2:

The Trek has the. Is it Super Caliber at this point? Yep.

Speaker 1:

Super Caliber? Yep, exactly, and, in my opinion, the bike. So that's your front, that's your full suspension setup. So, squishy in the front, squishy in the back, try to get one with two water bottle cages, yes, which is tricky, for for some full suspension bikes out there, they all don't come with them, but like when you go into the local bike shop and they're like, oh, this is super fast and Keegan rates this and whatever. Like two water bottle cages, why do we want that ready?

Speaker 2:

What's so important stations, and they're roughly 20 miles, 25 miles apart, that if you're on a reasonable pace you can usually ride um with just speed bottles, as opposed to having to wear a pack. Um, now again, we were talking about the folks at the very tip top of the course. A lot of them are. Some of them are riding with packs so that they have no doubt as to whether or not they can get fluids or not. Um, so there is a lot of variability as to are you comfortable riding with a with a pack? I can't. I, I'm personally just I don't like it Um, if I can avoid it. So, um, now, my son, oliver, who has is in this newer generation and they wear hydration packs everywhere. He's perfectly comfortable with it. So maybe he'll do it Um and I, and he's also trying to go a lot faster.

Speaker 2:

But if you're in the kind of that middle portion of the of the pack, especially if you're wanting to be able to change what's in your fluids you know I want a hydration mix here, I want water here, I want electrolytes there Then, um, bottles are a lot more adaptable from that standpoint. Um, so yeah, I was definitely. I would definitely recommend bikes that have two bottles. The one segment of the course that can be a little bit different, for that is the climb to Columbine Mine, because depending on what pace you're going to be doing for that, it may require a third bottle. So there were times where I would pick up a third bottle and put it in my jersey pocket to do that climb. Um, on the slower years Uh, there is an aid station at the summit but, uh, by that point you're just going to bomb down the thing and really not drink a whole lot anyway.

Speaker 2:

Um, but if you need, if it's going to be more than two hours or something going uphill, uh, to get to the turnaround that that was the one spot that either people would take a pack or stuff a third bottle into your pocket.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree with that, and there's no shade thrown to the hardtails out there. A hardtail mountain bike is still a great bike.

Speaker 2:

If you have the core strength and you've done the work and you're comfortable on a hardtail, it will most likely be a little bit faster.

Speaker 2:

I mean unless your back gives out it's lighter tail, it will most likely be a little bit faster. I mean, unless your back is lighter, um, and then some of the bikes that have have, you know, very minimal rear suspension just to take the edge off a little bit um can work very well. Slightly larger tire, um and I think we're probably going to end up talking at some point about tire choice and pressure and all of those kinds of things but a hard tail with a just a bigger volume tire that gives you a little bit of, uh, extra squish, can be a fast solution.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think for me personally if I was going hard tail it's already lighter and I might even do a dropper on a hard tail. I wouldn't do a dropper on a full suspension. But that's also. I think that's a personal preference on my end and if you're running like SRAM or some wireless dropper, you can essentially have two seat posts, swap them out very easily and depending on how you ride. The reason I say dropper on hardtail is hardtail is going to beat you up for nine hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, whatever. And if you can drop that on the descents you start to soak up the bumps with your legs a little bit better, as opposed to on a full suspension where that'll get kind of soaking or soaked up through the bike. So that would be like a very nuanced kind of like personal preference on my end. Droppers are hot but they are heavy, so just kind of know that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that the some of that also is that there's a practical or pragmatic component to that, like if your bike has a uh, internally routed um dropper post and it's you're not doing it on your own you could remove it, but it's going to be a kind of a pain and and you have to evaluate whether it's worth the money, time, hassle to swap it out for a non-dropper post for one event. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So Leadville is not a dropper course, but the reason I mentioned it is, let's just say, you're going to sink in 5k to or more to this mountain bike, going to sink in 5k to or more to this mountain bike. I think having a dropper post is way more fun. So, in the way of versatility, uh, if you're buying a new bike, plan ahead and maybe you have two seat post uh options, because having a dropper 364, uh days a year going to be super cool, throw it out for this one race, all good. So all that to say, we're not talking about, uh, dropper posts for leadville any longer than this.

Speaker 2:

but wheels, 29 inch wheels, I don't think yeah, I mean, I think, 29 inch wheels I don't. It's very difficult to get anything that that doesn't have 29 inch wheels, unless it's a 150 mil travel uh type bike. Um, now, the smaller, the very small frames I think are still using 27, five, um, yeah, which probably does make sense. So I think it's, where appropriate, at 27, five for a smaller rider a smaller frame makes sense, but 29 for certain. And then the tire width I think you know it's again 2.4s seem to be pretty much, uh, uh, almost standard. Again, on a hardtail maybe you go up a little bit, um, as well.

Speaker 2:

What I would say is that and I saw this recently, uh, in the conversation about mountain bike or or larger tires for gravel, uh races, and then one of the rationales was that gravel tires, being more robust, tend to be heavy, the casings are thick, all of those kinds of things, and a lightweight cross country mountain bike tire is thinner and some and can be lighter than the gravel tire, etc. So that brings up the question of how robust a tire do you need for Leadville? Do you need downhill burly kind of major tread kind of tires? I think you can get away with a moderate XC tire. The course, is not sort of soft and loamy or sandy, it's pretty much gravel and hard pack type surface. I think some traction is good For most people. I don't think like a file tread really East Coast cross country or Midwest cross country tire is probably great. So some tread I think is good. But I don't think you need burly big knob downhill tractor tires.

Speaker 1:

I mean me personally, I'll take a little extra rubber on the sidewalls for any mountain bike course because not getting a puncture is going to be way faster than saving a little bit of weight. So my two go-to tires for Leadville would be like the Kenda Booster or the Maxxis Icon. Those are two like still has tread. They're not super knobby, they're not crazy. But then they have the Kenda. Just look for their sidewall protection. I think you look for that. It's extra security. But you still have to know how to ride your bike. You still have to know how to take smooth lines.

Speaker 2:

Well, and that's the nice thing with Leadville, which is a little bit strange I have always used to refer to Leadville as single track with options there is a smooth line. Even though the road is 10 feet wide, there is a smooth line and you can see it quite clearly because that's where the other 2000 people have gone for the last you know however many months during the summer in recon courses and all these kinds of things Like there is a pretty notable smooth line that everyone's going to take. The thing is that if the consequences of going off the line are not that great, you can mess up and take a turn too wide or too narrow or whatever else, and not hit a tree because it's not single track, um, but you'll see where that smoother line is and where you're going to get outside of the line and perhaps, uh, run into some bigger kind of rocks. But that smooth line tends to also be a safe line to take because it's it's been the choice of people you know over and over again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah for sure. So I think it kind of summarized the wheel situation. I go carbon lightweight wheel, go pretty light there and everybody's going wider as well, so you can get away with in in. They're optimized for like 2.4, uh mountain bike tires. So a nice light, stiff uh 29 inch wheel setup, get a little extra rubber in the tires and I think that's like the perfect race wheel setup to go along with that. Um XC geometry and and one quick word on the uh cross country mountain bike geometry it's so I'll link to an article here if any nerd wants to know what the differences are between some of these head tube and seat tube angles. In short, that cross-country geo is going to be optimized for climbing and power production as well as being comfortable over time.

Speaker 1:

Keep in mind you're going be climbing what 13,000 feet at Leadville it's a lot and as aero as some people want to be in those road sections and whatnot, that's still a shit ton of climbing man. So having something that sets you up well for comfortable climbing on the day, give me that all day.

Speaker 2:

To that point too, I'm a fan of lockouts. So what does the lockout do? Explain?

Speaker 1:

that.

Speaker 2:

So, depending on, some of them are just open-closed, and then some of them are three-position, where it's fully open, a cross-country setup which just kind of tightens up the suspension a bit, and then total lockout where there's a well, I mean it's just there is no suspension Um, and usually they'll have a blow out or a blow through kind of threshold for that, like, if you hit something big enough it'll still give you suspension. But for the climbing, for instance, having if you have a um, a hundred or 120 mil um suspension fork and you want to get out of the saddle and you're bobbing up and down when you're climbing and you're not locked out, you're losing watts.

Speaker 1:

If it is like a paved climb or like a steady climb, in that, in that sort of thing, if it's a technical climb, that's when you want more suspension, cause that'll actually, or your suspension open, cause that'll actually help you climb a little bit better. So I think it's really important to mention all this because there's a whole culture, there's a whole section of of trail riders out there that don't even know that lockout exists or is an option for, because some of those enduro bikes all mountain bikes, down country bikes they come with no option of that. Cross country bikes do. So there again, when you're choosing, choose wisely, because you get on that thing and you're going to go climbing, stand up, get out of the saddle. You're going to be losing so much power production, so much efficiency by having the suspension be sloppy on those climbs.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and the biggest climbs at Leadville are smooth yeah exactly.

Speaker 2:

So the Hagerman Pass climb has some technical bumps in it essentially, but not very much. The majority of the climb up Columbine is a relatively smooth dirt road. The very top of Columbine is narrower but honestly, if you're not in the sub nine group, you're not riding it anyway, because it's a Congo line of people walking. Um, and then the one that gets people. I mean, obviously there's the, there's the climate power line, which there's a little bit of a walking section for most people at the very beginning of it and then you can ride the rest of it.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's slow going by that point, cause you're 80 miles in Um and then there's a road climb, a absolutely paved, smooth as glass road climb that people sort of forget about, but it's a 20 minute climb for most people. Um, and if, if you can, it's where you can really make up time or lose a lot of time because, um, if you're, if you sort of forget that it's there and you kind of crawl up the thing it's, it can cost you time. If you recognize that it's there, you eat well and hydrate well and recognize that it's smooth, then you can, if you can stay on the pace, you can actually make up some time there. It's a good place to to have some gas.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, agree. So finally, to kind of round off the whole bike setup, I won't spend a ton of time here but on the drive train. I'm a SRAM guy all day one by. Personally, I don't think you need more than that, and I think on the mountain bike side of things, two buy is overkill, but kick it over to you. Can you even find a two?

Speaker 2:

buy anymore.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, man, I haven't seen one in the last six, seven years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah no, I think that the drivetrains are almost universally one buys.

Speaker 2:

I think the interesting thing this year, or the last couple of years probably, is the whole crank length discussion With Leadville.

Speaker 2:

There's not a whole lot of concern about pedal strikes because the higher bottom bracket or shorter cranks to avoid pedal strikes is probably not a big deal and the evidence seems pretty good on the idea that shortening your crank is not going to lower your power production or this idea of longer lever arm is going to be more powerful. It seems pretty clear that in the relative lengths that we're talking going from 175, 172.5 down to 170, you're not going to lose any power. You may gain some ability to keep your cadence a little bit higher because your feet are just traveling in a smaller circle. And then I guess it's probably less important on the mountain bike from the hip angle standpoint, because I think the discussion on the road and gravel racing scenes with shorter crank arms has been that you can reduce the trunk angle because you're not kneeing yourself in the chest as much or bringing your thigh up as high. I don't know that that's as much of a concern on mountain bike, just because the position tends to be more upright to begin with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, not as big of a concern, but I would say in general, not going to the extreme end of things like 140s, but I would say a little shorter the better, because the torque and the leverage that we once thought was a thing with the longer crank arms not really a thing that I think is relevant potentially for this audience is they've gone to maybe they've gone on the road or gravel to a shorter crank and now they're riding 167, fives or 165s their mountain bike, which they haven't touched in a while and is a medium or a large mountain bike and came with OEM 175 millimeter cranks. Do they need to match? Do they need to at least shorten, you know, reduce, narrow the gap between the two? Or does it not matter if you're riding, you know, 165 on the road and a 175 on the mountain bike, because that seems intuitively like a pretty big jump?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I, I would definitely go to your local bike fitter to get some professional advice on that personally, and my advice that I give to my athletes is try to be as consistent as you can, because there's neuromuscular patterns that occur with your uh, with your uh pedal stroke and if you're all over the place, from one 65, all the way up to one 75 and all this stuff in the middle it's. I don't have any data to link to or anything like this. I will try to find it. But what we do know is that patterning that occurs is important in the way of how you produce your pet, your power, and I would say anyone who kind of has those bikes that goes from one 75 down to even one 70, you're going to feel that it feels a little bit more laborsome to push that 175. So me personally, I've moved to 170s on all my mountain bike stuff and I'm still 172.5 on gravel and road.

Speaker 1:

I think too, the other important aspect is if you're putting power meters on all these bikes too, you got to make some decision on where you want to land and how much money you want to spend swapping cranks and going with power meters.

Speaker 1:

So I would say, if you are to error, especially in the mountain bike, go a little shorter. And if you haven't touched that mountain bike in a while maybe it is a little older you're looking for an upgrade I wouldn't stick with the 175, but go to the bike shop or go to the local bike fit specialist, Cause they'll be able to give you even better information about why you should need what you need, and it's also relative to how you sit on the bike and what the angular measurements are for. Like you as an individual, I do think, like smaller people, people with shorter legs, they're going to feel way more comfortable on the shorter cranks. If you have a size large and you're a big person and you're taller, the 175s may work just fine. So I do think you should go get a bike fit for that.

Speaker 2:

My solution, honestly, for the uh well, one solution for the power meter conundrum on that standpoint has been going with a power pedal. I've been using the SRM mountain bike pedals and I just swap them between road, mountain gravel and so it's one pair of pedals. I only wear mountain bike shoes. Mountain bike shoes at this point are a high-end. One is so light and I'm not racing road that to me it allows me to keep all of the measurements on the bikes very similar, because I'm not concerned about well, the road shoes have a different stack height and the pedal has a different stack height, and so if it's the road shoe and the road pedal, my saddle height is this, and keeping one shoe and one pedal across all bikes has been really nice.

Speaker 1:

It's a pragmatic approach, for sure, but to that point I mean. So when we're talking about efficiency in the bike and the equipment and the gear, I mean, on the bike side of things, lightweight, full suspension, super efficient shoes. Let's talk about some of these other efficiencies, because road shoes or mountain bike shoes or gravel shoes for Leadville, what should we do?

Speaker 2:

A gravel shoe and a mountain bike shoe, as far as I'm concerned, are pretty much the same thing, marketed differently. But I think the key is you're going to walk, unless you are at the very tippy top of the field. Um, you're going to walk at the top of Columbine because it just turns into a Congo line, um, and you may be walking for half an hour kind of thing, um, and then you're going to walk on power line. Almost everybody walks on power line on the way inbound, um, and where else are you going to walk? Oh well, depending on how, where you are on the start, uh, you may end up walking on St Keevan's outbound as well. So road shoes, I think, are a non-starter.

Speaker 1:

You're, you're going to be off the bike and walking, um, yeah, and I'll just chime in and say here's a quick uh coach tip Since you're going to be walking that much in the race itself, you should probably do some hike a bike in your training. It's not fun and the way to do it is you find some stupid steep thing that's maybe really fun to come down, ride up as much as you can, unclip and start pushing. And that pushing because you go back to what Ruddy was saying about if your back hurts, if your hands hurt, all this kind of stuff. If you're not used to pushing your bike in goofy bike shoes up a loose over hard pack trail with a bunch of other people around you, it's really not fun, it's stressful, it's hard.

Speaker 2:

I lost so much time pushing the bike in a number of those years, um, because I'm not good at pushing bikes I have not to your point, I haven't really practiced it. Um, and I would get to the top of Columbine and I found that I was taking these short little, tiny steps and the person passing me was taking longer strides and was more, you know, better at walking with a bicycle than I was.

Speaker 1:

Get efficient with it. So what Rudy's talking about unclip, be smooth and just start pushing the bike. Two wheels on the ground. Push, push, push and watch your heart rate. I would say for your Wahoo or Garmin devices don't use auto pause, because if you stop riding you're going so slow and you're not pedaling. Your device thinks you're paused, so take that off auto pause because you want to capture the heart rate and the training stress and everything that occurs with that.

Speaker 2:

Well, the other reason you want to take it off auto pause is if you stop at aid stations and the timer on the device pauses. That's not your time. That's not your elapsed time anymore. Pauses that's not your time. That's not your elapsed time anymore. Um, the the timing for Leadville is when you roll across the line to when you roll back in, and it doesn't take a pause there for for stoppages. So if you're concerned especially on time cuts and on um pacing schedules and things like that, you need to keep a watch that is constantly running because it's real time. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. One final word on shoes Again. I think they got to be mountain bike or gravel whatever. And those shoes you know, shoes these days are way more efficient than back 10 years ago when we were doing Leadville camps as CTS out there on the Leadville course. But we had one guy show up one year in road shoes and he was fast. He was a properly fast guy and that was his strategy for race day. We said, hey, I don't think you should. He's like no, I'm going to do like a sub eight or something like that. He didn't finish that year because he was going fast, he was going good, but when he did have to hike he couldn't get up power line with road shoes. It just was not doable.

Speaker 2:

And to that point too, if you haven't walked in your mountain bike shoes because you live somewhere where you don't really ever have to unclip, make sure you can actually hike and push a bike up a hill for a long period of time in them without getting ridiculous blisters or really painful um feet. So in some cases the gravel shoes, for instance, can be a little bit um more forgiving from that standpoint. They tend to have a little bit more flex and I think that the toe area tends to be a little bit more slanted upward as opposed to a strict racing cross country shoe. Um. So that may be um a good option, especially cause you know that the places you're going to be walking are all uphill.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, exactly, all right, ready. In the spirit of the time crunch cyclist podcast that we have here, we're going pretty long, long. I would be remiss to not talk or mention fueling specifically for Leadville, because it is such a huge component to the race. This podcast was intended to just talk about the bike setup, but I'm a coach, so I want to talk about fueling. Let's go rapid fire here, though. We talked about two cages or a pack. You mentioned kind of the pros and cons of that, but what would you recommend for the uh, greater audience here, whether you go pack or bottle?

Speaker 2:

Uh, again, I'm personally a bottles forward kind of person. Um, I would say that, unless you're really really concerned on not getting enough hydration, um, I would go bottles if you can. I think. There, I think it's a faster option for most people. Again, preserving your back is is paramount If you're not used to riding with a pack on for nine hours, 10 hours, and it's going to weigh on your shoulders and your and your lower back and things like that. That's where I think the bottles can be beneficial.

Speaker 1:

And heat dissipation. So, from bottle standpoint and hydration, how many bottles per hour should we be aiming?

Speaker 2:

for during Leadville. I think you're aiming for two an hour. If you can get them down, there are ample places to drink, so I don't think that the ability to grab a bottle is a problem for the most part. You have to remember that you're at altitude, so you're going to dehydrate faster. So even if the temperature is not extreme and usually the temperature is not extreme you're still going to want to drink as if you are in a hot condition.

Speaker 1:

And then like, let's assume that we're not going to go for a hundred grams of carbohydrate per hour, but maybe somewhere between 60 and 70 grams per hour. That's going to be roughly, for most people, around 250 calories per hour. Times that by 10, almost 2000 calories that we're going to shove down our mouth. How do you carry it? How would you recommend people uh, leverage the carrying capacity for their bikes and their and their bodies?

Speaker 2:

Um, I think that if you're good at and comfortable with reaching into your own pockets, that carrying um Jersey mounted fuel is easy. Uh, I was personally very um partial to gels for Leadville because I didn't have to have my hands off the handlebars very long. I could get them and not stop riding. I'm an old roadie so that was comfortable for me. Again, because, remember, if you're going for, say, a nine-hour finish or a 10-hour finish, or you're worried about the time cuts, anytime that you're standing still you're losing time. So even if you just have to grab something at an aid station and roll slowly forward while eating and drinking, that's still better than sitting in the aid station for five minutes. You can't make up five minutes from an effort level on the course, so minimizing those stops and being able to carry what you want. So some people use the bento boxes. I personally have not really gotten into those. It's easier for me to reach into my back pocket than it is to fumble around with a bento box, but if you're experienced with it, that works too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I've had some people. Same thing bento boxes Right now. The cargo pockets on people's bib shorts are pretty in right now.

Speaker 2:

um I'm sorry, but I'm an old roadie.

Speaker 1:

I can't do it, I just but it's the spirit of gravel I see, I see the utility of it, I understand it intellectually I can't do it, okay, well, I'll get all of her on the podcast see what he has to say about it.

Speaker 1:

Um, but in the way, like, wherever you can stash stuff, utilize it. I think that's the important part. One thing Rebecca rush we used to do a bunch of camps. She's awesome and she has she does a lot of great stuff. If you've never heard about Rebecca rush, google her, do her events. Um, but one of the things she said just keep your garbage and your food separate. So, like, all the trash goes in one pocket, all the food goes in this and you're, so you eat this and then you transfer it over to there and then you can also see how much food you're eating based on how much garbage you have. Then you dump that at the aid stations and away you go, that's a pretty good idea.

Speaker 1:

So there's, there's those strategies.

Speaker 2:

Similarly to. I think you should start Leadville with at least two to three hours worth of fuel on your body. It isn't that heavy to carry. You're not going to be weighted down by it, but if you can, if you can extend through cause you're going to stop for fluids you're going to need. You're going to run out of fluids first, but you should be able to carry almost everything you need. Yeah, yeah, at least for the first half of the race, or something like that.

Speaker 1:

And finally, strapping gels to the top tube. Uh, that's an old cross country mountain bike um, uh, tip as well where you, you, um uh, take the gel and tape it, and just tape the, um, the very top, so, and then you layer them. You can put in like three, four or I've seen like 10 on someone's top tube and all you do is you rip the gel and the tape keeps the top of the gel on there. So you just keep on ripping, get gel over your bike, all over your hands. It's awesome. Okay, let's, let's carry this thing home with some training tips. We talked about some hike a bike aspects. We talked about maybe getting up to altitude so you can experience it, if all possible, whether that's a ski weekend or a training trip, something like that.

Speaker 2:

But the key there is most people are not going to be able to do an altitude training intervention that is going to affect blood oxygen carrying capacity. We're not talking about that. The experience of going to altitude for a weekend or something like that is more about understanding how your body responds to altitude, how to pace yourself, what happens to your power output, what happens when you dig a little bit too deep and you have to back off and you feel like you're going to die, all of those kinds of things. It's the experiential component that you're really after. The expectation should not be I'm going to go to altitude for a weekend and have more red blood cells.

Speaker 1:

That is the nerdy way of definitely saying the proper thing about that and I would say, the experiential realm of that and also the what we now know too, when the brain hits altitude and how it then regulates. So how you respond to altitude as well as getting those exposures, so that the brains let's just call it the algorithm figures out the altitude Rubik's cube faster on race day. It's important, even though you will not get any of the natural EPO or red blood cell production that people talk about with altitude camps. Anyway, exposure to altitude is great if you can, but let's talk about training. It's a long day. Let's say someone's going for 10 hours. How long should their longest ride be, ruddy?

Speaker 2:

The longest ride is not going to be a fitness component type thing, as you've talked about on the podcast multiple times and things. It's more experiential, Especially for Leadville. It's what happens to your back, what happens to your neck, what happens to your back, Uh, or I probably mentioned that already because it's that important Can your feet, you know your feet, everything all of those contact points, Um, that's the reason that you want to do long rides. So I would say five to six hour uh ride is essential for doing Leadville, whether you're going for 10 hours, 12 hours, et cetera.

Speaker 1:

Um, mainly just because you need to figure out what's going to happen to your body in that kind of a condition. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think, uh, a really good recipe, I've always said, is a six and four weekend, meaning right for six hours on Saturday, you then ride for four hours on Sunday, start, say, you know, morning seven, 8 AM each day, and that way you kind of get 10 hours in in a kind of a less than 24 hour time period. So that stress to the body is exponentially kind of strained going on and that's that's what you want. It's not just a one time, I mean. And it's hard to answer that question of like what's the best training program for Leadville? But if you can get in a high quality six and four, that's great. If you can get in a couple of them, even better, and the better you can get at just you know I'm going to get shredded by what is high quality mean.

Speaker 1:

but y'all know what high quality is high quality six isn't four weekends, and I think that's going to be pretty soft.

Speaker 2:

The other thing to keep in mind is, if you're that Leadville again is, it is a not relatively non-technical mountain bike race and it's long. Um, if you tried to do six hours on a highly technical single track uh, north Carolina mountains, new York mountains, kind of California single track that's going to be much tougher than six hours on the Leadville course. You're going to get beat up more, the fatigue is going to be great and you're going to come back from that six-hour ride and think, oh my God, I can't do another six hours of that. There's no way. Or Leadville is going to be impossible because that six hours just beat the living daylights out of that. There's no way. Or Leadville is going to be impossible because that six hours just beat the living daylights out of me. So be careful from that standpoint On those long rides that you're preparing.

Speaker 2:

For Leadville, I'd almost say you can do a long gravel ride and it can be a good test for Leadvilleville. Or a long mountain bike ride that includes, uh, some fire roads, some some gravel roads, uh, because again it's time on bike, not how much technical challenge can you withstand in six hours?

Speaker 1:

Let's bring this thing home ready, because I think we are planting the seeds of a Leadville training podcast. Uh, so today we talked about the best bike setup and in general in our experience we think that that typical classic cross country setup is the way to go. So light, carbon fiber wheels, probably 2.4s, maybe two, threes, a little extra side rubber to keep the punctures at bay and then you start doing your training, you figure out how to carry your food, you practice fueling on the bike and you go for some of these longer rides. And that that best bike setup. You should spend some time talking to local bike shop, your bike fitter, maybe some training buddies that have either done Leadville before or something adjacent to it. So anything you want to add to what is the best bike setup.

Speaker 2:

No, I think the biggest key is the best bike setup for normal bike racers, as opposed to the pointy end of folks is going to be more comfort-oriented or back-saving than worrying about what's the fastest setup, because at Leadville the fastest setup is the one that you can sustain for the longest.

Speaker 1:

Perfect way of putting it, perfect way of putting it. So if that spurs on a bunch of more questions around Leadville, let's hear them. Head on over to trainrightcom backslash podcast, ask anything you want about all things Leadville, bike training, nutrition related, and maybe we'll do another podcast about that soon. But, ruddy, thank you again for taking some time to jump on the podcast, because now you're going to have to listen to yourself and edit yourself. So thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

My pleasure, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainrightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in-depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Adam Pulford

Host