Welcome to the Aska Cycling Coach podcast, presented by Trainer Road.

I'm Coach Jonathan Lay, and today we have with us, Alexi Vermeulen, Alexi, you ride for envy, you ride in their lifetime Grand Prix, you have your own podcast called The Cooldown. It's awesome. People should totally tune into it. Or you and Keegan or Sophia and a special guest, sometimes Ruth Holcomb, break down the race. Today, we have you on the podcast. By popular demand, we asked listeners which guests they like the most. And you ranked at the top, Alexi, in terms of pro athletes, you were the top one. So you beat Keegan, you beat all the rest. You're just better. They just want to hear Willie chat. It's all about the dog. That's right. That's right. That's right. For those that don't know, Willie, his dog rides in his backpack all the time, adorable little pup. So, and right by Alexi's side right now. Alexi, we actually have a question. We're going to talk about SBT. We're going to talk about some strategy and tactics. We're also going to go over some like dashboards that I've built up to be able to represent some data polls we've done based on athlete questions. We're going to talk tire choice, these crazy wide wheels that you're riding on now on gravel, lots of stuff. But first things first, this one came in specifically for you. The question comes from James. Says this question is for Alexi Vermelin, if you have him on again. Yes, he's here.

I'm a previous cat one level road racer gone gravel down here in Oss. I assume Australia. And not to make the dumb and dumber mistake, it might be Austria too. I don't know. And I've fallen into a frustrating pattern that I don't know how to break. Our bigger races tend to have a few guys who are a league above the rest, and the field knows it.

They tend to let them few guys who are a league above the rest, and the field knows it.

They tend to let them go early in the race.

And if the top echelon doesn't choose to go, the race just slows down and mucks about until they do go.

At which point, they go hard for a minute, but then sit up and let them go.

So this is a situation where it sounds like really strong guys. The whole field just lets them go because they think that they can't race them. Or in some cases, the strong guys just don't go away. They stay there and nobody does anything because they're just waiting for that very thing to happen. And then eventually when it does happen, it just happens. They just let the fast guys go. The only time they do want to work is if somebody other than the top boys, then in parentheses it says usually me, tries to animate the race.

In which case, they're on me like flies on glue.

Nothing gets up the road and it turns into a sprint, which is the very thing that made me want to leave road racing.

Now, I don't reckon Alexi left road racing to avoid sprints,

but I do see him in similar situations in the big races there in the US.

How does he manage the frustration and race against negative tactics like this?

So I'm going to translate this really quick for what I think,

like this person's basically saying that like you sometimes

are the bridge and the glue between the Mads or the Keegan or somebody when you're not

that person that's up the road. You're stuck in between. And I actually think this is a keen observation

from this person because I do see the same thing where you're you're strong, you're stronger than the pack that you're with,

but not strong enough just to ride away from everybody

when they're working together,

but then the top guys get away in this move

and dang it, you're stuck in between.

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