Welcome to Unbound week.
A strange sort of calm in Kansas.
Welcome to Kansas. Well, Missouri actually - Kansas City is confusingly not in Kansas.
It’s 08:42. I’m sitting in an airport hotel, having already finished breakfast a few hours ago. I’m jet lagged, but that pleasant jet lag where you wake up at 6am thinking it’s 9am. Frank Sinatra is playing over the radio, and my friend and photographer from Grimsby, Dan Hutchinson, is sitting to my left.
It’s Unbound week.
For those who are new here since The Peloton Economy, or my recaps from Traka and Levi’s, welcome, and thanks for reading. I want to apologise for my lack of activity, my May disappeared into a training block in Andorra. It turns out there’s an inverse relationship between hours on the bike and intelligence levels. Consider this me resurfacing.
We’re about to drive across to Emporia, a two-ish hour drive west. We arrived late last night, and our AirBnB doesn’t open until this afternoon, this morning is deliberately slow. Walmart to do groceries, a bike shop for our spares, and generally get as many ducks in a row as possible. I’ve made an unconscious decision this year that I’m going into Unbound extremely calmly.
In previous years, I’ve over-prepared in the way that it starts to become its own stress. Multiple wheelsets, double the amount tyres, plans for every conceivable scenario. This is my fourth Unbound, and somewhere between then and now, I’ve stopped confusing preparation with control. The course will be what it will be. I checked the weather forecast once on the plane and decided not to check it again. If there’s mud, there’s mud.
I know where things are in Emporia. I know how the race tends to unfold, for better or worse. My tyres are chosen, the nutrition plan is sorted - Carbs Fuel, Haribo, Monster Energy - anything else is noise. One recon ride tomorrow, and then as little as possible.
Will this work? Honestly, I don’t know. Only time will tell.
I went back and read my piece from 2023 this morning. The beauty of writing all of these blogs is that I can reflect and see into my own headspace. Unbound back then felt like one big adventure rather than a race with pressure.
“I think I accidentally found the spirit of gravel in those flint hills of Emporia. The spirit of gravel isn’t all serious racing for the win, or having F1-style pit crews... it was nice to be on the other side. Pros and amateurs alike sharing a beer late into the night, cheering on riders still finishing after dark. A race I really wanted to hate. A race I came out loving.”
Gravel has changed considerably since I wrote that. The mud in 2023 was controversial, but the controversy felt innocent; there was something silly about it all. Now the sport is more polished, more watched, more serious, and a lot richer. We can argue until the Flint Hills cattle come home about whether that’s a good thing.
I’m not sure I have a clean answer. But I do think the more a sport organises itself around performance, the more we have to remember to hold onto whatever drew us here. For me, that something was the feeling of adventure, doing something new, and telling the world about it.
This race is owned by the corporate beast that is Life Time, but it’s somehow managed to maintain something special. Don’t get me wrong, there are more camera crews than your average movie set, and every brand is trying to do something to stand out, but beneath it all, there’s an endearing charm about the biggest gravel race in the world.
For all you read about the US, the reality of the Midwest catches me off guard every time. Strangers chat to you at breakfast, wish you well, and genuinely mean it. People I see a few times a year greet me like I’m a local. There’s a community that forms around these races and small towns that I’ve never quite found anywhere else. It’s intangible, and the more I try to describe it, the further away it gets. Some things are like that.
I’m happy to be here. It feels a bit like 2023 again, which is strange given how much more I know now. Funny how experience can bring you back to something that feels a lot like a beginner’s mind.
Will I win? Probably not. Will I try to have as much fun as possible, and race as hard as I can? Yes.
For more updates from Kansas, keep up to date on my Instagram.
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