Unbound is the biggest gravel race in the world, both in terms of participants and profile. If you are a professional off-road athlete, it’s important. If you are an amateur involved in the sport, you know what Unbound is. It is one of THE races that you want to do. I would argue that it is gaining the profile that makes it one of the known races even outside the sport, like Leadville. As professionals, we race on the same course on the same day in the same conditions as all the other participants. Personally, I think this is very cool. This creates a very tight connection along the full length of the spectrum of experience and ability in our sport. This year, thunderstorms the night before and the morning of made sure that the 20th anniversary edition would be one to remember. We all battled out there, facing challenges we expected and many we didn’t. We all have stories and experiences from the day that will be with us forever. ALL of us. This is my story of the lead up to Unbound and the ensuing carnage on race day.
Prep
This year’s race prep looked a little different for me since I decided to add another 300+ km race on the schedule. Exactly 1 month before Unbound I raced the Traka in Spain, arguably the second biggest gravel race in the world. I had a very good day. I finished 9th and was competing for the last spot on the podium well into the final third of the race. This is a ride I am very proud of and one that confirmed my step up to another level this season. That said, a good day at these races absolutely takes it out of you! For everything you get on race day, you have to pay it back in the following week(s) in the form of recovery.
With the realities of the relatively tight turn-around between Traka and Unbound, my preparation for Unbound looked different than previous years. After some much needed recovery, I slowly got back into things and did a 12-day training block followed by recovery into race week. This went well, but in hindsight I was riding a very fine line and I think I overdid things slightly. More on that later.
Race Week
I arrived to Emporia on the Sunday before the Saturday race day. This 6-day pre-race runway is what I have been doing for the last few years and it has worked for me. This is massively different than my first Unbound 5 years ago when we planned to arrive 2 days before, but delayed flights had us arriving in the early hours of the morning the day before the race. Once I arrived on the ground the next few days were all about course recon and testing out equipment to inform the race-day setup. Compared to previous editions, this year’s course was relatively straight forward. Basic, even. There were not many super technical sections. The selective sections of the course were clear: the Towers climb early on, Texaco and Teeter, and then the bumps into Kahola after the final feed zone. However, there were two other factors that, in hindsight, would prove to be THE biggest on the day, at least from my perspective. Those would be the mud, of course, and the wind.
Alongside the specific preparations for the race in terms of course recon and training, I also had a few sponsor obligations, media projects and a prototype launch on the schedule. This part of the job requires a careful balance to make sure these things do not detract from the main thing, which is the best possible performance on race day. This is part of the reason I arrived to Emporia early. It’s the biggest gravel race in the world and my sponsors want to capitalize on that, and that requires time on my end of things.
The Night Before Race Day
It was relatively dry all week, a few showers but nothing meaningful with respect to changing course conditions. Further, the forecast was shifting each day to show a smaller chance and smaller accumulation of rain leading into race day. That said, Kansas weather is notoriously challenging to predict, so this kept everyone on their toes all week. I was staying in Americus, a 15 min drive from Emporia and the location for the final neutral water-stop on the 200 mile course. The night before race day, around 10 pm, I awoke to sounds of rain on the roof. Yes, I was already asleep at 10 pm. The race starts at 5:50 am for the elite men. I do my absolute best to get as much sleep as possible before that early wake up for one of the toughest races days of the season. I went outside to see things for myself, it was raining hard. My first thought was okay, it’s on, with a wave of excitement making it’s way through my body. The second thought was damn, the Unbound XL 350 miles riders are out in this right now. Legends! I then went back inside and checked the radar to see where it was raining and if it was hitting other parts of the course. It was. It seems like the weather models are quite good at determining when and where it is currently raining.
Race Day
I woke up at 3:30 am and it was raining hard. The radar showed heavy rain elsewhere on the course as well. I honestly don’t find this early wake up that challenging. I am a morning person and as soon as you get over the first few hazy moments when your alarm goes off, your mind comes online and you realize it’s a big day, so get up. In the afternoon the day before I had resigned myself to a dry race and I had my bike setup for these conditions with bigger tires and less tire-frame clearance. I swapped these out race morning and I was pretty sure it would be wet, but if not, it was still a very good setup. It was dry when we got to Emporia early to pick up our GPS trackers, and honestly, there were still question marks regarding the conditions. On the start line I was lined up between Keegan and Finsty. With about 1 min to go Keegan turned around and said 1 word to Finsty, “dry”. Presumably, he had someone to go scope conditions of the first sector with potential mud that comes about 12 miles and 20 km into he race. This was accurate, it was dry, but the mud did come, just a little later than expected. And, did it ever come!
If you follow the sport, and followed this year’s edition of the race, by this point to know that it was muddy. I was well positioned into the first mud section where many riders had to dismount because their tires and frame packed with mud. I was actually second wheel here, until I was very much not second wheel. I managed the moment relatively well, eventually getting back on my bike and seeing what I could do to keep moving forward. I caught up to the group ahead, made it over the towers climb and into the other side, and then my chain came off. I stopped, used my water bottle to spray the chainrings off a bit and it went right back on and I got rolling. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Then the chase was on. Fellow PI athlete, Alexey Vermeulen, came up behind not too long after and injected some energy into our chase back to the front, which would take the next 30 km. We made the catch after Madison.
It was a hard chase back and my legs could feel it. This was when I realized that I was not on the same day as Traka and it would require a lot of grit to get to the finish. I did everything I could to hide in the wheels and top up on nutrition, but I was on the back foot. Unbound is incredibly challenging on the best of days. When you find yourself missing a bit of your normal strength, on a mud year, it is another level. As is the case, at the top level of most sports, it is a mental game. I had started this race, and I was going to finish it, I just had to keep going and I had to work with my mind to make it happen. At this point in my career, I expect there to be moments that I want to quit. Those moments are inevitable. This is a mental challenge that I plan for and am prepared for. At this year’s race there was another one that created a lot of stress for me, and it was related to the mud. I could barely see out there. This is not a unique challenge, everyone was dealing with it, but that didn’t make it any less stressful. You had two options: operate at, by my estimation, 10% of your normal vision in terms of field of view with mud caked on your eyewear. Or, take them off and be able to see better briefly but then get mud and dirt in your eyes to the point that you can also barely see and it is extremely painful. Both get you about the same percentage of your normal vision and both are very stressful mentally as you still need to navigate the course and terrain within the group. I have been there, I have done 90 min cross country mountain bike races in these conditions. 10+ hours is another game.
All that said, by the time I was through the third feed zone I was still in the group that was racing for 12th place. Of course, I did not know this at the time. I was in survival mode. I also didn’t know that It was possible to finish 4th in the LTGP standings on the day as my PI teammate Alexey did. With about 60 km to go, just as the course was turning back towards Emporia and into a headwind, everything caught up with me and I got dropped from the group. It was an incredibly hard ride back to town, but I did it, and am so proud to have finished that one.
Post Race
By all accounts, I had a pretty smooth day out there. My feeds were dialed, I was off the bike just twice due to the mud, nutrition was perfect and my drivetrain was running smooth all day.
That being said, I am leaving this race with room to strengthen mentally. I have the opportunity to improve my game by being more resilient and more prepared mentally. This is the thing I love about being an athlete. There is always something to improve and room to grow. For the most part this approach and the lessons from sport also spill over into everyday life, which is the most important part.
That’s my story from Unbound ’26, but it is not the only one. Every single person that toed the line had their unique experience out there. More than likely, after a shower and some time to reflect, they took something valuable away with them. My hope is that this spills over into their lives, and the lives of those around them, in a positive way. To me that is the most valuable part of this crazy sport we do.
