Can Simon Survive America's Toughest Gravel Race Series?

The Grand Prix of Life is the

toughest

gravel

racing

series

in the world. It's an invitation for only the best men and women from the US and beyond to compete in seven rounds for a prize of $300,000. It's so competitive that last year's men's winner, Keegan Swenson, finished fifth in the world. championships, so how difficult is it? Or I'll find out by competing. Yes, stupid idea. The producers of GCM are clearly Out For Blood. Thanks everyone, now to make matters worse, the first round of the

gravel

series

is actually not gravel at all. What happened? to the handlebars Panic knot these are not warped handlebars, they are actually supposed to be flat for these ladies and gentlemen it is a mountain bike it is a bit like a gravel bike only it has flat handlebars wider tires and when we say suspension Suspension really Bad now, luckily this is actually my bike for the day.

Our folks at Pinell have just released two new mountain bikes, this one full suspension and hardtail, the same bikes that Tom Pitcock and Pauline Fon teased the world. Glory of last year's championship. I'll tell you a little more about the details of this bike later. The second stroke of luck today is that this bike seems fast even standing still and I'm going to need all the help I can get. gets the last lucky break, it's actually back in the Time Mist a little further, a little further, yeah, a little further, yeah, here we go. I actually

race

d mountain bikes, in fact, I adorned the classic Seaotter with my gifts in 2005 and 2006, how did it go?

It was great, yeah, thanks for asking. I'm going to need help, Danny, how hard is it? Block wildly and say clearly how difficult it is going to be. Yeah man, you're going to have a great day, do you have any advice? um you need to start pretty fast because it's all about positioning yourself for the first singletrack, um, so it's going to hurt, but just dig deep and try to get into a good position at the top. I would say don't get carried away. In the first half hour there is a lot of excitement, a lot of people get the beans thinking it's a cross-country

race

, but that second lap is very brutal, so keep some in your back pocket, okay, don't go too. hard at first, I'll remember, so here we are, early on race day, what awaits me and the best in the business, we have 32 miles of premium mountain biking in California, which doesn't sound so bad, but that's just one lap, we had to do two last year, the winning time was just over 4 hours, a pretty amazing speed of 25 km per hour, so yeah, anyone knows mountain biking, we know First of all, that kind of speed is basically impossible and secondly, that kind of duration is changing a lot to help.

I've got 300G of C carbs to see, precision fuel, uh, in a camel, a bottle of water and then as you can see, a bunch of gels, otherwise I'm going to use pretty little spares, I have faith in that . We'll get through it, but yeah, I mean, I can't wrap my head around the fact that I came here 18 years ago and got my ass kicked and now I'm back, basically, yeah, it's like what do you think is going to happen? Wish me luck this time, welcome everyone to Monterey, California where it's a cool and cloudy morning here at the Sea Otter Classic.

I have a huge setup. Sy, I think I'm the only person who starts with legs, but that's good, right? It proves wrong. keeping it too taking it too seriously, I know you like it oh yeah so that's sson and that's what you know, like some legit Riders here and I, I'm very excited any time, on my word you'll go off the line, We want to wish you all. Riders, good luck. Riders, you are already on your way and you are off to an aggressive start just as we were talking about the first start date as 15K with absolutely full throttle.

I'm not last yet, which is great, but I'm definitely there. running at a pace I can't maintain for 3 hours let alone four or even five, which is what I hope to do at first. I had to go full throttle on that road just to keep from falling. I can not believe it. I haven't felt that out of my depth at the start line since I did my first bike in the World Cup race in Belgium, there are less than 23 similar types of vibrations, similar levels of oh, the morning fog and Cloud. I don't know you. I can see it starting to burn, which is what apparently happens every day here, which will make it beautiful, but it will increase the temperature, it's not burning like 20° centigrade, I have no idea what it is in Fahrenheit, oh Jesus, look at that rise.

Come on, come on, I might take some people, yes, about four or five, I already chose. I'm mainly making up time on The Descent, which is W, it probably shows that my legs aren't very good compared to anything else. I'm still running at a pace that in the back of my head I know I can't sustain, but I still don't want to interrupt it and stop and everyone around me seems to be like they are Well, mind games, that's what they are, my legs are quite empty now just muscular resistance. I think all these really tough climbs where you have to lean on the bike for high power just to keep going really wear me out while I'm busy racing. the power of editing I thought I would tell you a little more about my bike because it is an absolute weapon.

It's only just launched and also because I thought you'd be really interested, particularly as it's been designed for and with multi-discipline world and Olympic champions. Ace Tom Pidcock, you can probably tell by the paint job, which I definitely haven't earned, but am enjoying now. Pinell just launched two new mountain bikes, so a hard rear, preferred by Pauline Fon, is a bike that has no suspension in the back and then this, the full suspension bike called the Dogma XC, has a suspension of 100m front and 90k rear, but if you put longer shocks on it you can run 120 front and 100 rear for those of you.

A lot of them aren't familiar with mountain bikes and this one definitely has a lock switch, so actually with the Pusher button you can firm up the suspension and actually push it back in and you can lock it completely, making it feel like a completely rigid bicycle. Now, without wanting to sound too pretentious, this bike looks every inch like Pinell. It has the same design language as my Dogma road bike. I mean, that's fair, but look at it, it's got the same kind of really solid structure. Carbon tubes with amazing flowing lines, asymmetric rear end, super stiff, it even has a boost tube to deal with the pidcock power.

I mean, it looks fantastic, right? What I also think is particularly interesting about this bike is that it really caters to the kind of needs of CrossCountry riders, particularly the position that this bike puts you in, which is why apparently Pitcock said he wanted a bike to look like a little to his road bike and had the same position to be able to move smoothly from one bike to the other. Below you can see on my bike that there is quite a long stem for a mountain bike anyway and there is a lot of drop from saddle to bar, which again makes you, as a road or gravel rider, instantly feel like on home, which has been particularly helpful because today was literally the first time I got to ride this SE bike, I met the new boss, same as him, Rob bot, this is Jan Winson, not today, not today, not long now go, but basically everything is uphill and it hasn't gotten worse if So, now I can turn around.

I have a little gear in this, which is awesome. I prepared to go very slowly because that's the trade-off with small gears. Oh, I can't tell you how steep it feels. Take a walk. from your Clouds of Glory, oh c down, you can have it all, but not today, but this is the last sting in the queue, I just have to get here and I'm there, they kindly put up quite a few motivational signs that I would normally put up. I'm not interested, but it's actually my mood. I'm going to need it to finish my desired completion time of less than 5 hours.

It is absolutely up for grabs. I have 10 minutes to return. You set this goal. Now is the time to see. through the sign says: "It's my fault, go ahead and tear up the sky, but not today, not today, take a walk in your white, as divorce shakes the Earth, you can do it all, but today I didn't have enough of a gap big". I decided to race with it and, you know, Alexis scared someone I respect a lot and oh my gosh, how hard is the Lifetime GP? I could have told you that I really only needed to do the first 100m.

So I knew I thought I would be fine on the road, how hard can it be? He was spinning hard. I had to go full throttle to keep from falling over and, uh, that's not how you want to start a 110 km race, so I was driving full speed, like I'm wondering how long this is going to last and about 40 km is the answer. I learned something today and that is that two lap races are really difficult, as always, the lowest point of any long course is the middle and that is the exact point where you come back to the start and end up where your car is, uh, but I managed to drag myself in for a second lap and, uh, it's a great race, awesome riding and the bike was perfect, so I think it was fun.

I think a lot, what was my finishing time and my finishing position? Then 5 hours and 35 seconds, which on the one hand is a bit annoying, but on the other it doesn't really matter as far as my final position, well it was. Lastly, you'd think I finished 64th, although presumably those behind me stopped for a picnic. I definitely shouldn't have forgotten Lan's advice, although my second lap was half an hour slower than the first. I will learn it someday, maybe you can suggest me. what I try below in the comments section and like the video if you enjoyed it.

Many thanks to pinell for the loan of the bike and make sure to visit the gcn tech channel if you want to see some videos. about all the cool new bikes and products from here at seata