Hey folks. I’m targeting a Grinduro event for my 2022 A race and want to start building the plan toward it. My question is: what would be the best race plan for the 6 weeks leading up to it?
It is a gravel event (or a long MTB event, depending who you ask) but it is only based on 4 timed segments, not a really long effort—you just need to survive the 110k and go hard for the 4 timed sections.
Is the Gravel plan still the way to go?
Thanks.
Oh…and how come other people’s username says “training plan customer” but mine doesn’t? and does that actually do anything?
I’ve done a couple Grinduros; here’s what I have observed.
1: There’s typically only one climb and it will be 1-2 miles in length.
2: There will be a flat/rolling segment.
3: Typically there are two downhill segments; one fast (fire roads) and one technical (single track).
To be competitive on the segments you have to pedal, you’re looking at 6 to 12 minute efforts.
I suppose it may vary by location but from what I’ve seen, they all appear to be pretty similar; VO2 barf fest length.
The downhills are really worth paying attention to as well. They can be pretty long and if you’re not a good descender or are underbiked for the terrain, you could potentially lose a lot of time.
I did my first Grinduro on a gravel bike and switched to a hard tail MTB for the next time. The hardtail was a much better choice. The only segment it was noticeably was the rolling hills/flat segment where faster rolling tires and more optimal gearing/position could have shaved some time off but for the steep, loose climb, I was able to get in a much better cadence with too much weight penalty and on the downhill segments I was significantly faster.
This year I will be on a gravel bike with 2.2"x27.5 tires and I think that may be the sweet spot. We’ll see.
TL;DR - No segment will be more than 15 minutes (hopefully!), it’s rowdy enough to penalize a pure gravel bike unless you have MVDP level handling.
