Maybe Merida had a big say in it, as they're desperate to have their bike win Unbound?

That’d be my guess, doesn’t seem like good prep for the Tour.

I’m picking Beers for the win, his engine is HUGE. His main issue will be fueling enough. He and Keegan have been training together recently so I assume they will work together.

I do remember that last year Mohoric said Merida were keen for someone to do the Gravel Worlds and do well there, hence the reason he did that race.

Where do you see that? The online results are notoriously unreliable fyi

There's no doubt that Mohoric has the engine, and one would assume the pedigree, given his WC status, but... in his recent appearance on the King of the Ride podcast, he admits that he almost never rides a gravel bike, rides a mtb poorly, and as of the date of the recording, still didn't know how tire plugs work. Even the slightest miscalculation on his tire setup could see him spending a significant amount of time on the side of the road.

I'm putting my money on D Johnson. He's due a big win.

Yeah, I just listened to Alex Howes on the Escape Collective tech podcast describing his tire nightmare at least year's Unbound. Described going through something like 9 CO2s. Alex went through a respectable amount of research for this year's, ending up with tires that significantly favor puncture resistance over fast rolling, and also using MTB inserts to be able to run really low pressure without risking a lot of rim strikes. And he's running near-MTB tire width - hopes to go 50mm in front.

Also said he's going to have something like 3 CO2s with injector heads already threaded, and 6-7 types of plugs, including *car* size (I don't think he was being sarcastic, but could have been because he was really good at dry sarcasm in the interview). It sounds like the lead pack is so savage now that saving the 4-5 seconds it takes to thread an injector is worthwhile.

I'm rooting for Alex now because he's a proper nerd.

I’m doing a short (70 miles) gravel race tomorrow, and watching this has me thinking of sleeping in and watching the Dauphine instead.

Dauphine on replay is just as good. You'll be old soon.

Winners averaged 22 mph, which is hard to comprehend. Mega ride from Lachlan.