Power Analysis: Racing 2025 Lauf Gravel Worlds with the Pros

Published August 27, 2025 09:12AM

72 hours ago, I was shivering on the start line of Lauf Gravel Worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska. I was surrounded by some of my idols, riders nearly my age that I had been watching, reading, and writing about for years. Names like Keegan Swenson, Torbjørn Røed, Matt Beers, and Tobias Kongstad…I was a bit starstruck, but I didn’t have time to gawk. We were about to race 151 miles of gravel.

Lauf Gravel Worlds was the biggest gravel race of my life. I had won the Dust Bowl 100 in July, one of the premier gravel races in the Midwest, and that was enough to secure an entry into the Pro/Elite field in Lincoln. But Lauf Gravel Worlds was a completely different playing field. Gravel pros from around the world were here, so was the US National Champion, and riders who I had watched race the Leadville 100 just two weeks ago.

Let’s get past the oozy part: I was here to race for the Top 10, which offered a massive payout including $17,500 for the winner. That was my goal, yet, I had no idea how realistic it was. I knew the power numbers that I could do for 6-7 hours, but there is a whole lot more to gravel than power numbers. I would have to handle my bike across 135 miles of Nebraska gravel, plus ~15 miles of minimum maintenance roads (MMRs).

The MMRs had been pelted by recent rain, but having dried in the week leading up to the race, there were plenty of deep ruts that I would have to navigate. Little did we know just how big of an impact a small storm would have on the eve of the Lauf Gravel Worlds.

Preparing for the Gravel Worlds

We had driven in two days before, arriving at 7pm on Thursday before Saturday’s 5:55am start. Thankfully, I’m an early bird and I do most of my training and racing before 8am, so the 5:55am start wasn’t going to be the worst thing in the world.

Leading up to the race, I knew that the key to success was preparation. There is a lot to take care of during a 151-mile gravel race, a long checklist of crucial items needed to win. I researched the best tires for the terrain, and connected with Panaracer to set up the Gravelking X1 tires for Lauf Gravel Worlds and the USA Gravel National Championships. Tire choice is a hot topic, one that I try to avoid at all costs. I prefer to pick one and move on. So let’s.

My equipment choices in brief: Zipp 303 NSW wheels, S-Works Diverge, Giro Imperial road shoes, knockoff aero socks with Mueller pre-tape stick spray, ROKA sunglasses, USWE hydration pack, Maurten bicarb, and SiS gels. Two of these choices were mistakes. Can you guess which ones?

One of the biggest changes I made between the Dust Bowl 100 and Lauf Gravel Worlds was switching from an old Camelbak to the USWE 2L hydration pack. I knew that fueling for a 7-hour race would be one of the keys to success, and having a large and comfortable pack was crucial. Lauf Gravel Worlds is a self-supported race, which means that you are not allowed to receive assistance outside of the provided aid stations. That meant no feeders, regardless if it was a full-time soigneur or your grandma. Riders could stop at the aid stations to refill bottles and grab food. But I didn’t want to plan on that in the pro race. Stopping at any point was a dangerous game, so I wanted to carry everything on me from the start.

So there I was, 5:55 am in Lincoln, Nebraska, carrying nearly 700 grams of carbohydrates and 500mg of caffeine. My lights were on because we started in the dark – sunrise was at 6:45 am – but we wouldn’t finish until the early afternoon.

The mud was a real separator

The first 30 minutes were fast and hectic. It was pitch black, with only the lights of the other riders illuminating the gravel in front of me. I drifted between the front and the back, my eyes burning from the dust. Everyone knew that the early breakaway had a good chance of making it to the finish – in recent years, riders in the early break often finish in the Top 10 at Gravel Worlds. So the fight was on, but after 30 minutes, the pack was still together rolling at 40 kph. That’s when I saw my opportunity.

The pace slowed around a left hand corner, and I accelerated up the outside of the pack. By the time I looked back, I already had 10 seconds. The pack had let me go, just a few miles before the first MMR. I was anticipating a big fight for position coming into that MMR, and there was a good chance there would be carnage with over 60 pros still in the main group. My attack was perfectly timed, but that’s when it all started to go wrong.

I was the first rider coming into the MMR, and the last rider coming out of it. As soon as my tires hit the dirt, I realized it wasn’t actually dirt – it was mud. My wheels began turning slower and slower until I couldn’t pedal anymore. I pulled off to the side of the road just in time to witness the pile-up in the peloton as they hit the deepest part of the mud section.

I had forgotten to grab a paint stick at the start line (Mistake #1), my bike had minimal tire clearance (Mistake #2), and my road cleats were completely clogged with mud and gravel (Mistake #3). It took me far too long to make my bike rideable, and by that time, the leaders were miles up the road. There was another muddy MMR a few miles later, and that one was even worse. I had to walk for nearly a mile, caking my shoes and bike in ten pounds of mud.

I watched the pro women and age groupers come past me, learning as much as I could through observation. They were riding these sectors, not through the mud, but through the tall grass on the edge of the road. They had plenty of tire clearance and strong paint sticks that helped them clear mud while riding. I had done so much preparation, gotten so many things right, but I neglected to prepare for peanut butter mud.

The best pros stopped for less than 10 seconds during each mud sector. If they couldn’t ride, they immediately dismounted and began running, holding their bike in the air rather than getting it clogged with mud. They didn’t need to spend five minutes cleaning their cleats, and they knew how to use their paint sticks while riding.

How Matt Beers won Lauf Gravel Worlds

The lead group formed following the first MMR, but it was missing a rider named Matt Beers. Over the next 20 minutes, Beers made the winning move by bridging himself back to the lead group. This is one of the most impressive efforts I’ve ever seen in a gravel race. Beers pushed over 460w for 20min to get himself back into contention, and had he not made this effort, his race might have already been over.

Beers – Chasing Back to the Lead Group

Over the next few hours, the lead group traded pulls to keep the speed high. While the favorites marked each other, a couple of riders went up the road in what turned out to be a doomed breakaway. Swenson, Beers, and Unbound Gravel winner Cameron Jones kept driving the front group coming into the final checkpoint in the town of Weeping Water. When I reached this point of the course, I was surprised by how winding and busy the roads were in town. Just before the checkpoint, we rode along a narrow bike path and into a gravel parking area. There were runners, dogs, and children along the bike path in town, and I had to dodge a truck that was driving straight towards me just before the checkpoint.

Lauf Gravel Worlds took place on open roads, which meant that every racer had to adhere to traffic laws on course, including stopping at stop signs and yielding to cars. I understand the need for these rules, but it is such an odd experience to be racing a professional gravel race, but still stopping at intersections and dodging cars on course.

On one of the last MMRs, the lead group split down to four riders: Swenson, Beers, Jones, and Adam Roberge. It wasn’t shown on the livestream, but there had been a crash in the lead group that had caused the split. Thankfully, everyone was okay. But these are the small moments in gravel that can turn out to be decisive. While road racing is more about aggression and attacks, gravel racing is often a race of attrition. Those who are left standing at the end are those who have minimized their problems.

It is impossible to get through a 7-hour gravel race with zero problems – the best riders are not those who have the least amount of problems, but those who are the best at dealing with their problems. When their bikes clogged up with mud, the leaders cleaned their gear in under 20 seconds. Whereas, it took me 10 minutes.

When the cameras cut to the lead group with 15km to go, only Swenson and Beers remained in the picture. They had attacked on one of the final steep pitches of the race, distancing Jones and Roberge after six and a half hours of racing. When looking at this effort alone, the power output is nothing special. But when you factor in the fatigue from 6.5 hrs of racing, rising temperatures, and nearly 8,000 kJs burned, these are the attacks that win pro gravel races.

Beers – Establishing the winning move

Swenson and Beers worked together until 2 km to go, where Swenson stopped pulling and let Beers lead out the sprint. It was a bumpy run-in to the sprint, the road winding through the parking lot on the way to the Expo Center. This was the chunkiest gravel that we’d ridden the entire day, so it felt odd to have this terrain so close to the finish. If there had been a group sprint of 5-10 riders, I can only imagine the chaos that might have ensued. The finish line came just before the entrance to the Expo center, giving riders a few seconds to slam on the brakes before entering the barn.

Beers led onto the pavement with less than 200 meters to go, but it was Swenson who jumped first from behind. Beers got on top of his gear before Swenson could draw level, and that was a warp as the South African took the victory. Based on his Strava file, it doesn’t seem like Beers did anything special in the sprint. He is a big rider, weighing in at over 80 kg, but he was able to win the sprint with a sharp burst of power. Jones’ podium-securing sprint was much more impressive, as he hit a peak of 1,490w to beat Roberge for third.

Beers – Final Sprint

Jones – Final Sprint

As for me, I finished 41st. It wasn’t the result I was hoping for, but I’m proud that I finished. After stopping to clear the mud, I rode a hard tempo for nearly seven hours. With all the preparation I had done, I still wanted to test myself and see what I was capable of. At the end of the day, I surprised myself, finished with a Normalized Power of 300w for 7hrs 51min. It was enough power to put me in the Top 10, maybe even in the Top 5. But I had to be there. I had to clear the mud quickly, and be able to run without clogging up road cleats. I learned my lesson the hard way at Lauf Gravel Worlds, and I’m excited to do it all again on September 20th at the USA Gravel National Championships.

Power Analysis: Racing Against the World’s Best at Lauf Gravel Worlds 2025 In a $100,000 Face-Off

Preparing for the Gravel Worlds

The mud was a real separator

How Matt Beers won Lauf Gravel Worlds

Beers – Chasing Back to the Lead Group

Beers – Establishing the winning move

Beers – Final Sprint

Jones – Final Sprint

Beers – Lauf Gravel Worlds