Even pushing my bike through the mud is causing it to clog up; soon my trusty stick is so muddy it needs its own stick
Emporia, Kansas: small town in the Midwest, population 23,844. Pre-2006: self-proclaimed Disc Golf Capital of the World as host of the Disc Golf Open. Post-2006: widely acknowledged as Home to the Spirit of Gravel thanks to hosting Unbound Gravel – 4,000 riders, hundreds of miles of dirt, self-supported.
Unbound has been compared to the Super Bowl or the Tour de France and is unofficially the biggest race on the gravel calendar, the race everybody is desperate to win. So although the majority of participants are in it for the challenge, to line up in Emporia is to line up next to the biggest names on the circuit, including many who sound familiar. Ex-Sky rider Ian Boswell won Unbound 200 in 2021; last year EF Education’s Lachlan Morton was third in the same event while Canyon-Sram’s Tiffany Cromwell won the women’s Unbound 100.
Cycling is often credited with being one of the most accessible sports in the world. You can’t kick a football around Wembley but you can ride up Alpe d’Huez any day of the week. Unbound pushes it all a step further.
It takes all kinds
The marquee option here is Unbound 200, a 200-mile course which first took place under the banner ‘Dirty Kanza’
