Thanks @jaselikesbikes. The overlays in these Leadville videos are done with Dashware. It used to be at dashware.net, but it looks like they've let the name lapse so not sure where to get an official download now. The gauges are largely customized and my goal was to just get as much data from the FIT file on screen and see what stuck. Dashware is also really good at custom data, which is what I used to get the shift data from my SRAM AXS derailleur. Unfortunately, even though I told Dashware not to interpolate, it is doing it anyway with that data so the gearing shifts around on it's own. It's close but should be precise and the drift does take away from it's usefulness. Congratulations on getting into the LT100. I'm not in (yet) for this year but plan to do at least one qualifier to see if I can get lucky in the after race lottery. I got a coin at Tahoe Trail in 2022 which is how I got into the LT100 for 2023. Best of luck in your training and the race!
Thank you so much for posting these! I watched for 3+ hours this am on my training getting ready for my first leadville in August! Very helpful to see the course. A couple questions if you don't mind--it seemed like you could have road in a pace line with a few other rides more. Is there a reason you didn't? Second, do you have a pacing strategy you try to follow? Thanks again!
Hi @AaronCorcoran1 - congratulations on getting a ticket to Leadville. It's really a life changing experience. Towards your questions - on drafting/pace lining - in general, I do look for opportunities to draft. However, I place drafting a few steps lower than power pacing on my decision making. So in places where I might have let groups get away, it's likely that the pace was too high for me. That's a very general answer. If you want to reply with a few timestamps of particular points where you thought "hmm... why isn't he drafting?", I'll be better able to give an answer that might be more helpful. On pacing, in the Stage Race last year, I was shooting to shave off about 40 minutes and go sub-10 hours to get an Orange corral placing for the LT100. I decided going in to go a bit harder than I thought I could hold and not hold anything back for subsequent days. This is where the footage helps me too - when I reviewed Stage 1, I could see that I was going too hard for too long up Kevins BUT I managed to hit the rest of the stage ok. Stage 2 I felt good also and took about 15 minutes off my 2022 time. Stage 3, it started to catch up to me. Now, for the real thing in August, my pacing was to keep my heart rate out of the red zone above threshold. I was successful there in that my max heartrate for the day was 3 or 4 beats below threshold so I kept myself in check. For comparison, my time to Twin Lakes was only 1 minute slower than the Stage Race. Overall, the 2023 LT100 conditions were great (ideal?) and my big problem was nutrition. If you haven't already, get acquainted with the Leadville podcast (leadville.fm) and look into their Slack channel that Fatty put together. Happy to answer more questions here or there!
Great videos! They are perfect for someone training for Leadville. No one else has the data. That’s so important. Would mind sharing some personal data to help me put your ride into context like w/kg or your height, weight and ftp? I’m just tying to see if given where I am now, how possible is this race?
@Dlampe2188 Hey Dean - I am at the low end of the spectrum on power. I was ~3.1 W/kg last summer for the Stage Race and the LT100. That said, even at such a low power level, finishing the LT100 is well within reach. But (there's always a but...) there are sooo many other things to learn and get right to finish and/or have a good race. Nutrition really is the #1 thing and I have yet to get it right unfortunately. At the low end of the spectrum power-wise also, I have much smaller margins of error so when I screw something up, I'd say the consequences are more severe than someone with a 3.5 W/kg or 4.0 W/kg power output. Some commentary on this particular run. I was looking to shave off ~40 minutes off my time from 2022 in the Stage Race to get a sub 10 hour result and an Orange corral placing for the LT100 (I was successful in that). However, I went way too hot up St. Kevins and as I watch the video too easy in other places on the course. In contrast, in the 100, I was only 1 minute slower up Kevins but 20 bpm lower heartrate. Feel free to ask any other questions you may have or develop as you train and prepare. You can do that here or If you haven't already, check out Fatty's Leadville podcast (leadville.fm) and join the slack channel. You can DM me there or ask general questions to the group. Congratulations on getting in and best of luck. The race is an incredible experience, truly a gift.
@@johnalderson191 thanks John, that helps a lot. I trying to get to 3w/kg. I think that gives you a shot and you proved that. What tires and pressures did you run in the stage race or the LT100 and would you use them again? Was that 3.1w/kg at sea level or altitude?
Sorry, the 3.1 is at 5000 feet. Tires, I ran 2.25" Schwalbe Racing Ray/Ralph combo on 25mm internal rims. These are great tires but I think the Racing Ray is even a bit more than I need for Leadville. Last fall, I tried Schwalbe Thunder Burts (2.35F/2.25R) on the race bike and love them. IIRC, I ran around 17 psi front 18 or 19 rear. I had a Vittoria XC insert in the rear tire but not front. All of those are great tires and I was running the Thunder Burts even lower - 15 or 16 front here on my local trails. I'm going to be running the Thunder Burts this year in a few races and I'd run them at Leadville definitely. I'm not in for this year though :(. I've run many Maxxis tires, Vittoria Mezcals, Conti Race Kings in other races and I am def. Team Schwalbe at the moment.
Great stuff John ! I stalked you on Strava - congrats on the buckle from the Leadville 100. Based on your times - we were 1 min apart - we cleared rode together on the course. Looking at your pics I think we rode for a while at the bottom of Kevin on the way back. Congrats again !
Likewise Tony, Congratulations to you! Strong finish! You must have had a great Turquoise Lake Road climb. Wish I could have caught the train as you went by :)
I love these. Thank you for posting. Looking to do my first MTB race next year in the Leadville stage race. I am on a YT Izzo with 130mm travel front and rear but no lockout on the fork. Do you feel that will impact my climbing much and will I need to look into getting a fork compatible with a remote lockout? As per your camera setup, the quality is great. Curious to know the camera and mount setup you’re using.
Hi @Westonisler, thanks for the comment and view. For the Stage Race, you'll be fine on your Izzo. I would not try to make a trail bike an XC bike and a little more squish is not going to ruin your day. I would, however, take a good look at your tire choice for the race and avoid running tires that are too chunky. There are alot of right answers for tire choice - a Minion DHR is not one of them. You want something that has low-ish rolling resistance. A great combo in my experience is the Schwalbe Racing Ray (front) and Racing Ralph (rear). You can get them both in 2.35" now. But, that's about all I'd worry about equipment-wise. Pacing and nutrition will be far more important for you to have 3 good days. If you like it and want to do more racing, then think about a dedicated XC bike and think about lockouts and weight then on a bike that's designed for it. Best of luck!
Hey John, I watch your stage race videos continuously. Hoping to be able to do in in '25. Just wondering if you stayed in Leadville or at a lower elevation? Thanks and cheers!
Hi Mike - I have generally done Copper Mtn, Breck, Frisco so all at 9000+ and usually only a few days ahead of the race - not ideal for acclimating. The longest I've done is last year where I started in Telluride at around 9000' camping above it on Monday before the race. Then I moved on up to the Leadville area for the rest of the week.
Hi John, I have realized that this is about my pacing for the LT100, What was your normalized power and weight / FTP so I can get an idea if I am on the right track. Thanks
Hey Jase - so last year for the Stage Race and LT100, I was around 155 lbs and an FTP of around 220 measured by both TrainerRoad AI FTP as well as the Kolie Moore long form protocol (30 mins instead of 20 and trying to push harder for the last 10 IIRC). The long form test was done outside also in the summer heat. So this is ~3.1 W/Kg @ 5000 ft. My LT100 NP was 134 watts. Here's a link to my race: www.strava.com/activities/9635936815
That is a great help, thanks@@johnalderson191 I will probably be about 3.3/3.4 w/kg sea level by leadville. 250 watt FTP and 160lbs. So an NP of 150-155 would be the goal.
@@jamescolter6597 The % grade and degrees of incline both come from the Garmin directly but don't line up well for some reason. There's always some lag also in that Garmin is trying to do these calculations in real time based on distance traveled and elevation change measured by barometric pressure changes. I should remove degrees and just go with % to be less confusing.
Hi Roberto - you have to use an external battery much bigger than any GoPro battery. I use either an Anker 10000 mAh slim brick (cell phone size) or a smaller Anker 5000 mAh cylinder.
Hi Daniel - These are filmed with an old GoPro Hero 7 Black. Does the job though. The data comes from a Garmin as a .FIT file. Dashware understands quite a few formats natively, including FIT which is a binary file. Anything it doesn't understand you could adapt to a CSV and it will read it.
Thanks John. This is great, loved the overlays. I have used virb in the past.
Jase .... Oh and first time Leadville in Aug.
Thanks @jaselikesbikes. The overlays in these Leadville videos are done with Dashware. It used to be at dashware.net, but it looks like they've let the name lapse so not sure where to get an official download now. The gauges are largely customized and my goal was to just get as much data from the FIT file on screen and see what stuck. Dashware is also really good at custom data, which is what I used to get the shift data from my SRAM AXS derailleur. Unfortunately, even though I told Dashware not to interpolate, it is doing it anyway with that data so the gearing shifts around on it's own. It's close but should be precise and the drift does take away from it's usefulness.
Congratulations on getting into the LT100. I'm not in (yet) for this year but plan to do at least one qualifier to see if I can get lucky in the after race lottery. I got a coin at Tahoe Trail in 2022 which is how I got into the LT100 for 2023. Best of luck in your training and the race!
Congrats on the ride! Thanks for sharing
Thank you so much for posting these! I watched for 3+ hours this am on my training getting ready for my first leadville in August! Very helpful to see the course. A couple questions if you don't mind--it seemed like you could have road in a pace line with a few other rides more. Is there a reason you didn't? Second, do you have a pacing strategy you try to follow? Thanks again!
Hi @AaronCorcoran1 - congratulations on getting a ticket to Leadville. It's really a life changing experience.
Towards your questions - on drafting/pace lining - in general, I do look for opportunities to draft. However, I place drafting a few steps lower than power pacing on my decision making. So in places where I might have let groups get away, it's likely that the pace was too high for me. That's a very general answer. If you want to reply with a few timestamps of particular points where you thought "hmm... why isn't he drafting?", I'll be better able to give an answer that might be more helpful.
On pacing, in the Stage Race last year, I was shooting to shave off about 40 minutes and go sub-10 hours to get an Orange corral placing for the LT100. I decided going in to go a bit harder than I thought I could hold and not hold anything back for subsequent days. This is where the footage helps me too - when I reviewed Stage 1, I could see that I was going too hard for too long up Kevins BUT I managed to hit the rest of the stage ok. Stage 2 I felt good also and took about 15 minutes off my 2022 time. Stage 3, it started to catch up to me.
Now, for the real thing in August, my pacing was to keep my heart rate out of the red zone above threshold. I was successful there in that my max heartrate for the day was 3 or 4 beats below threshold so I kept myself in check. For comparison, my time to Twin Lakes was only 1 minute slower than the Stage Race. Overall, the 2023 LT100 conditions were great (ideal?) and my big problem was nutrition.
If you haven't already, get acquainted with the Leadville podcast (leadville.fm) and look into their Slack channel that Fatty put together. Happy to answer more questions here or there!
Great videos! They are perfect for someone training for Leadville. No one else has the data. That’s so important. Would mind sharing some personal data to help me put your ride into context like w/kg or your height, weight and ftp? I’m just tying to see if given where I am now, how possible is this race?
@Dlampe2188 Hey Dean - I am at the low end of the spectrum on power. I was ~3.1 W/kg last summer for the Stage Race and the LT100. That said, even at such a low power level, finishing the LT100 is well within reach. But (there's always a but...) there are sooo many other things to learn and get right to finish and/or have a good race. Nutrition really is the #1 thing and I have yet to get it right unfortunately. At the low end of the spectrum power-wise also, I have much smaller margins of error so when I screw something up, I'd say the consequences are more severe than someone with a 3.5 W/kg or 4.0 W/kg power output.
Some commentary on this particular run. I was looking to shave off ~40 minutes off my time from 2022 in the Stage Race to get a sub 10 hour result and an Orange corral placing for the LT100 (I was successful in that). However, I went way too hot up St. Kevins and as I watch the video too easy in other places on the course. In contrast, in the 100, I was only 1 minute slower up Kevins but 20 bpm lower heartrate.
Feel free to ask any other questions you may have or develop as you train and prepare. You can do that here or If you haven't already, check out Fatty's Leadville podcast (leadville.fm) and join the slack channel. You can DM me there or ask general questions to the group.
Congratulations on getting in and best of luck. The race is an incredible experience, truly a gift.
@@johnalderson191 thanks John, that helps a lot. I trying to get to 3w/kg. I think that gives you a shot and you proved that. What tires and pressures did you run in the stage race or the LT100 and would you use them again? Was that 3.1w/kg at sea level or altitude?
Sorry, the 3.1 is at 5000 feet.
Tires, I ran 2.25" Schwalbe Racing Ray/Ralph combo on 25mm internal rims. These are great tires but I think the Racing Ray is even a bit more than I need for Leadville. Last fall, I tried Schwalbe Thunder Burts (2.35F/2.25R) on the race bike and love them. IIRC, I ran around 17 psi front 18 or 19 rear. I had a Vittoria XC insert in the rear tire but not front. All of those are great tires and I was running the Thunder Burts even lower - 15 or 16 front here on my local trails. I'm going to be running the Thunder Burts this year in a few races and I'd run them at Leadville definitely. I'm not in for this year though :(. I've run many Maxxis tires, Vittoria Mezcals, Conti Race Kings in other races and I am def. Team Schwalbe at the moment.
@@johnalderson191 that’s great information. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Looking forward to more videos!
great vids, keep them coming.
Thanks Will. We'll see what 2024 has in store.
Nice riding with you on the podcast ride and congrats on the buckle!
Likewise Darrin! I really enjoyed hearing your story and seeing your passion for the race and racing in general.
Great stuff John ! I stalked you on Strava - congrats on the buckle from the Leadville 100. Based on your times - we were 1 min apart - we cleared rode together on the course. Looking at your pics I think we rode for a while at the bottom of Kevin on the way back. Congrats again !
Likewise Tony, Congratulations to you! Strong finish! You must have had a great Turquoise Lake Road climb. Wish I could have caught the train as you went by :)
Good stuff John!
Ride safe my friend ❤
I love these. Thank you for posting. Looking to do my first MTB race next year in the Leadville stage race.
I am on a YT Izzo with 130mm travel front and rear but no lockout on the fork. Do you feel that will impact my climbing much and will I need to look into getting a fork compatible with a remote lockout?
As per your camera setup, the quality is great. Curious to know the camera and mount setup you’re using.
Hi @Westonisler, thanks for the comment and view.
For the Stage Race, you'll be fine on your Izzo. I would not try to make a trail bike an XC bike and a little more squish is not going to ruin your day. I would, however, take a good look at your tire choice for the race and avoid running tires that are too chunky. There are alot of right answers for tire choice - a Minion DHR is not one of them. You want something that has low-ish rolling resistance. A great combo in my experience is the Schwalbe Racing Ray (front) and Racing Ralph (rear). You can get them both in 2.35" now.
But, that's about all I'd worry about equipment-wise. Pacing and nutrition will be far more important for you to have 3 good days. If you like it and want to do more racing, then think about a dedicated XC bike and think about lockouts and weight then on a bike that's designed for it.
Best of luck!
Hey John, I watch your stage race videos continuously. Hoping to be able to do in in '25. Just wondering if you stayed in Leadville or at a lower elevation? Thanks and cheers!
Hi Mike - I have generally done Copper Mtn, Breck, Frisco so all at 9000+ and usually only a few days ahead of the race - not ideal for acclimating. The longest I've done is last year where I started in Telluride at around 9000' camping above it on Monday before the race. Then I moved on up to the Leadville area for the rest of the week.
Hi John, I have realized that this is about my pacing for the LT100, What was your normalized power and weight / FTP so I can get an idea if I am on the right track. Thanks
Hey Jase - so last year for the Stage Race and LT100, I was around 155 lbs and an FTP of around 220 measured by both TrainerRoad AI FTP as well as the Kolie Moore long form protocol (30 mins instead of 20 and trying to push harder for the last 10 IIRC). The long form test was done outside also in the summer heat. So this is ~3.1 W/Kg @ 5000 ft. My LT100 NP was 134 watts. Here's a link to my race:
www.strava.com/activities/9635936815
That is a great help, thanks@@johnalderson191 I will probably be about 3.3/3.4 w/kg sea level by leadville. 250 watt FTP and 160lbs. So an NP of 150-155 would be the goal.
Well done, what app are you using to show all that data? It’s so cool
Hi Charles - it's a program called Dashware. www.dashware.net/
What are the two grade numbers?
@@jamescolter6597 The % grade and degrees of incline both come from the Garmin directly but don't line up well for some reason. There's always some lag also in that Garmin is trying to do these calculations in real time based on distance traveled and elevation change measured by barometric pressure changes. I should remove degrees and just go with % to be less confusing.
Hi, how do you record 3h plus without changing battery ? btw I love your video :)
Hi Roberto - you have to use an external battery much bigger than any GoPro battery. I use either an Anker 10000 mAh slim brick (cell phone size) or a smaller Anker 5000 mAh cylinder.
Thanks for the answer and looking forward next video.
Hi dude. Awsome job. What cam recorder do you use and what devices do you have to recognize the data to sync it with DashWare?
Hi Daniel - These are filmed with an old GoPro Hero 7 Black. Does the job though. The data comes from a Garmin as a .FIT file. Dashware understands quite a few formats natively, including FIT which is a binary file. Anything it doesn't understand you could adapt to a CSV and it will read it.
What gearing did you end up running this year?
I ran my stock 32T chainring with the Eagle 52-10. The 32T I think is the right choice over the 30 that I ran last year.
No single tracks in this race?
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