I feel like someone at Life Time Grand Prix HQ should have done a few searches before naming their marketing fluff, promotional material, YouTube series about their gravel/MTB race thing. I had to go to the second page of Google to find it; you know, where they hide the bodies, and I knew it was there; somewhere. The image above is the first result. I actually, thought that I’d been Rickrolled for a second :).

Although, I guess that probably too big an ask since they named the series after a middle-aged women’s TV channel, or is it a fitness chain? Dunno… Any way, I digress… Having struggled through the first few episodes, this is kind of a review, but mostly a warning. It’s boring, marketing drivel, done in the style of a low budget reality show, with maybe 10 minutes of actual content per episode. Also, it was really sad watching Mo Wilson ride, and really hard to listen to Keegan Swenson use his mouth hole.

I don’t get it. This wasn’t a race video, it’s glossy promo with very little substance. With so much money obviously thrown at it, why does it suck so much? Maybe the problem is me. I was expecting something that would make me want to watch the races, or race the races (obviously well back in the also-rode categories), but it wasn’t that at all. It was an attempt, a very poor attempt, to make me care about the stories behind the racers. But they didn’t even do that very well. I don’t care about “roadies” vs “MTB” conflict. Why are gravel racers “roadies”? Why are there so many poorly maintained mustaches? Why, if I’m supposed to care about the racers, and the series, do they only show me 4-5 out of the 40+ folks? This was their chance to sell me, and it’s actually done the opposite. Where I was ambivalent before, now I’m indifferent.

I have included the first video below, in case you want to suffer through it. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comment section below :D.