5 Race Bikes from the 2022 Leadville 100

 I was thinking this as well.

 Right? That new Blur is a freaking weapon. Nice job in designing it, Santa Cruz!

 it has road bike pedals

 @ShreddieMercury: Saw that

 Are those bacon strips and tool I see taped to his brake hoses?

 @ShreddieMercury: Yes, this is shameful. Pinkbike Mods, please move this feature to Outside's Gravel publication...

 And his number plate is warped too. Possibly to be more aero?

 @ShreddieMercury: which is interesting to say the least. Also a sign that the dude is an animal. Most of the Leadville riders walk a portion of Columbine, but with his time and pedals I doubt he did.

 @sunringlerider: Definitely not but you can see he is in the 52 in that image.

 @ShreddieMercury: woooof

 @Supermoo: but still 38-52!!

 @ShreddieMercury:

I dare say that Steamboat Gravel, the following day, may have been more technical than Leadville. However, what an animal.. Nice job Keegan

 @sunringlerider: I attempted Leadville last weekend. I cannot fathom riding up the second half with a 38/52. It is ridiculously steep and not a smooth fire road like the lower half.

Personally, once I hit 11.5K of elevation it was a whole different ball game. Was fine below that elevation, but above the nausea crushed me. Committing to pedaling everything with road pedals is insanity.

 They have his bike there. The SC Highball.

 @TucsonDon: Added after I made this comment

 @FloridaHasMTBToo: Started to think that as I read the rest of the comments

 yea i believe hitting a cow, like youre tired and look off one way and drift and bam you hit a cow. but it said the cow hit her? how does that happen? cows aren't too fast are they?

 @Mrtonyd: if they want to go fast they can. They also tend to move slow and get in the way, a track hazard for sure

 @Mrtonyd: if spooked (by another rider), they become unguided missiles. Hard to predict where they are going.

 @mi-bike:

My closest call: rode round a huge white boulder in the shade of an olive tree...and the boulder stood up and bolted! WTF?!?!

 @Mrtonyd: Not until you've been chased by one, an angry one. Then you'll think they're way too fast.

 @Mrtonyd: Up to 25mph.

 @Mrtonyd: Got hit by a calf last year. It panicked and instead of running away, ran straight into me.

 In other words, she hit a cow. Done.

 @Mrtonyd: The little ones especially are quick, erratic, and will dart out in front of you. If you are ever out west driving in the open range you got to be on the lookout and slow down if they are close to the road.

 Used to live on a property where the owners had three PET cows. They move quickly when they want to. Also, when fully fed and not kept in pens to be slaughtered grow quite large. As in weighing tons. Bruno was the size of my E350 van.

 @blackthorne: I’ve been hit by a deer, a big ass turkey and had multiple rabbits run into my bike.

 @zephxiii: So a calf is the brain of a squirrel combined with the weight of 2-3 Keegans?

 At that high altitude too. I can’t even hike well. These racers are pushing the limits

 And road cleats?

 I have done plenty of 12 hour races on a HT. Bottom of my feet start to hurt, but otherwise not a problem. Finally sold my soul and bought a FS frame that I like. I think I am faster, and more comfortable. So I hate myself now.

 @JSTootell: Don't get me wrong, I have an aggro titanium hard tail that I shred, but man it beats you up. Yes, you can go pretty fast and have a wild ride, but it makes my feet, quads, and arms cramp up. And thats on normal, sub-10 mile rides.

 I did the Gunnison Growler on my hardtail. Considered by folks who've done both to be harder than the LT100 (might not have been the smartest choice in hindsight...). I did the 24HITOP, Grand Junction Off Road (unintentionally because I broke my FS two days before), and Whiskey 50 on the hardtail as well. Oh and 18 Hours of Fruita, won that. Sometimes it seems like the best choice if there's a lot of climbing. Sometimes gets a little rowdy on the descents. Much more doable with a dropper though. Also White Rim in sub-8 hours... I really like my little hardtail.

 Yeah, leadville 100 is a road race on mountain bikes. If you want endurance MTB racing there are better (and cheaper) options in Colorado.

 @powturn: Sea Otter Classic is also non technical. Come to the Skyline Classic XC in Napa dude. Super chunky and fun!

 Now Sea to Sky XC races

 @winkeyless: spookfest?

 @powturn: I get that road cleats and shoes aren’t ideal for hiking or running off the bike during a race, but they’re also very stiff and thus have fantastic power transfer with a bigger but still light platform. If it’s not an overly technical course, why use mountain bike shoes and pedals if only for the street cred?

How often do you see top level racers off the bike anyway? Not much these days. I say all the more power to Keegan. Do what it legally takes to give yourself an advantage.

 @powturn: how often do XCO riders have to dismount and push their bikes? Thats the only situation where mtb pedals (shoes really) have an advantage. You could race a downhill in road pedals and wouldnt notice a difference

 @WarOnErrorism: Leadville is organized by Lifetime who also organize gravel events like Unbound and Crusher in the Tusher. So a gravel organizer already has it.

 @GZMS: XCO riders dismount quite a bit (muddy conditions on the climbs, bottlenecks on technical bits, crashes). But this wasn't an XCO event, and likely didn't require dismounting.

 @WarOnErrorism: yeah it is a dinosaur with a massive turn out. Don't see it going away anytime soon. It might be a road race on dirt for some but for others it is a huge accomplishment. If you dont like it, then just dont read or watch anything on it.

 @joedaho: with the exception of Toonies, there aren't any more

 @joedaho: with the exception of Toonies, there aren't any more

 ..

 @GZMS: Downhill on road pedals??? my heals hurt just thinking about it. Man the amount of wishful ignorance is just immeasurable.

 @WarOnErrorism: seems to me like the main problem is your need to classify the race... the course is the course and people will run whatever setup they think is best. If it sounds lame, don't sign up.

Nobody is claiming it's anything like XCO, so what's the point of that comparison? People know what they're signing up for and it's still super popular - enough so that you need to qualify, log volunteer hours, and enter a lottery to even get to the start line. Whether you like the course or not, there are loads of people who are stoked about it.

It's not like there's a shortage of 100 mile drop-bar gravel events around, not sure why Leadville should be turned into yet another one. Personally I wouldn't be interested in racing Leadville but I think it's cool to see what sort of setups people end up choosing for these oddball races. People have done it on gravel bikes, but obviously Keegan (and all the other top finishers) don't think that's the fastest setup. Pretty hilarious the see people nitpicking setup choices **on the winner's bike**, lol.

 @bkm303: Agreed on all points. I raced Leadville last weekend, and it is an incredibly well organized event with a cult-like following, for good reason. An XC race? Not really, nor is it a gravel race. I only saw two drop bar bikes all day, and I rode the bike I had- a Tallboy. The bikes featured here were the choices of well informed riders. XC full sus or hard tails were the weapon of choice. Not sure why people on this are complaining, other than that some will complain any time a PB article isn’t about enduro events or trails.

 @dcaf: congrats! How'd you do? Make any weight weenie / watt-saving mods to the tallboy for the race?

 @MDW83: yes , also dry xco events dont require dismounting… but the guy/girl i was replying to was cheerful that xco events are not ridden in road shoes, while for many of them thay absolutely can be and probably be faster..

 @WarOnErrorism: thin and brittle carbon soles?? Ahahaha.. you should probably work on your technique if you are constantly receiving rock strikes into you shoe soles (not sure how thats even possible??) so severe it would brake a carbon shoe…
aero tech only for the road?? Ahaha.. keegan did 25kmh avg.. if you dont realise that with such a pace aero drag is the #1 resistance force then idk, you should probably keep racing for a few more decades until you realise that..
Now the only part where you might be onto something is regarding fatigue with such setup, but fatigue is so personal that “it’s just your opition, man”.. sometimes the best strategy to minimise fatigue is to minimise time on course

 @bkm303: I had a great experience on Saturday. It was my first race, and in my mid 50’s, my goal was to finish sub-12. I ended up just under 10:45, so I was pretty happy with that. The only thing I did to the bike was to swap in some XC tires. A Santa Cruz Blur would have been faster, but I didn’t happen to have one!

 @WarOnErrorism: If you had dared to look carefully, you'd have realized that the high end XC and road shoes from a given manufacturer are the same shoe with the same carbon soles. Only difference is how many holes they prepare foe bolting cleats and they glue a handful of additionnal pieces of tread on the XC ones to makes them walkable without slipping on mud. One is not more or less thin/brittle as the other.

 Or even get up Columbine starting from the bottom

 We're not trying to be the best at exercising either ...

 ^This

 Lol. Pretty much!

 Wouldn’t even be close!

 It would be cool to see Keegan go up against some of the big boys! He's dominated everything in the states the last couple of years. I applaud him for doing his own thing but not getting to see him against the top tier in the world cups is a bummer. Hopefully more of them will come over for early season Epic Rides events.

 P. Segan did unbound gravel this year and wasn't anywhere close to Keegan (though he very may well have been treating it as a training ride). I agree that it would be interesting to see Pidcock and MVP take these marathon off road races on, but I wouldn't automatically consider them favorites.

 Yes, just savage

 Can someone more cultured than I educate me on this reference

I do find it funny to fly those colors and not be often on top, though he could still kick my ass

 More like it has the yu-gi-oh abridged “IN AMERICA!“ vibes

 @user178323: perhaps you missed the part where it says 'payed homage to his 2021 title as xc marathon national champ'. Is that not enough to 'fly those colors'?

 I couldn't remember the livery, so I looked it up. And no, it doesn't (to me). Nor the American Racing Team Moto2 bikes at CotA.

 @JSTootell: fair enough.

 Seat tubes have got too short for us gangly people. I’ve got about 80mm below my 175 dropper

 All in the name of reducing frame weight. They have been torturing us tall folks with too-short headtubes for close to 20 years now!

 Pick a dropper post lower post length and be a dick about it

 Retro MTB?

 @50percentsure: upcountry

 @user178323: Unduro

 Seems like if the terrain causes most folks to ride a mountain bike, it's mountain biking. MTB has a range of disciplines. Heck, what I do looks almost unrecognizable from what the DH pros do, lol

 HT or FS?

 @jqwan: FS

I wasn't sure at first if it was just a new linkage / Yoke but there are a few other subtle tweaks on the rear triangle design, upper shock mount, headtube sculpting etc.

 @wingguy: I don't think so. Frame is identical to my 2022 SW Epic.

 @kjeagen: Ooooh I see what happened - I’m going crazy.

 Aaron Chamberlain talked about this particular tire in the last pinkbike podcast... not only would this one be prohibitively expensive to retail ($150+) but it's fragile as hell and is really only meant to last a race or two on XC tracks

 The reason you are slow is because Maxxis wont give you a race only tire ;(

 I wonder if its a slight dig at the Maxxis Sharpie crowd

 Higher tpi = less durable. 170 isn't worth it for us mortals.

 ok, feel free to dm me if you wanna buy a pair for $300

 @canned-slammin: the Scott team is using them for XCO's only but usually not for long distance races without support. The thinner sidewalls make them more supple, so it all depends on the terrain and if there're sharp rocks. They also have their own mold and really measure 2.125 on 29mm rims. The 2.4 is also narrower, slightly over 2.3.

 Why would you want to buy extra flimsy race-day-only tires that will only last a few rides anyway?

The type of rider who pays for their own tires is not the type of rider who would want / benefit from these in the first place.

 Only in Singapore.

 @hllclmbr: ah ah ok