Unbound 200 (1) - The lead up
Elated with my result, buzzing from the week of festivities, and feeling wiser from an additional experience in the American gravel scene, here's a short series on how things unfolded for me.
Unbound 200 has gone and passed. I’m over the moon with my result (5th!) and I’m feeling hungover from a huge week at one of the biggest gravel festival’s in the US.
I’ll break down the event into three parts, the first of which will be explaining the rather chaotic lead up to the race. The second will dive in the nitty-gritty of the race itself, and the third about the event as a whole.
Unbound. Before coming to Emporia for the first time this year, the name itself conjured images of an arduous and painful day in the saddle, that only the crème de la crème of gravel could claim to do well at. Images of mud-clad riders crossing the finish line came to mind, and I winced at the idea of spending over ten hours in the saddle. Yet, 5 days before the race, I was packing my bike and what seemed like half the house to make my way to Kansas, to try my hand at the event. Very honestly, I was going because of the Grand Prix, to check a box, and to try to place in somewhat good points for the overall. I wasn’t even nervous because I wasn’t expecting anything out of it. I still went through the motions of meticulously planning and getting all the necessary equipment crammed into the suitcase.
As we wake up, the morning of our travel day, texts start flooding our phones about our flight being delayed again and again and again. We sit around. Make the most of the situation by making a nice breakfast and watching the Giro. And finally, 5 hours later, make our way to the airport. Our flight is delayed both in Tucson and in Denver, which makes us arrive in Kansas City at 12:40. We both run to get the rental car, thinking we’ll pick up the luggage after. This was an obvious mistake, as at 1:30 am, the workers in the airport want to go home and lock up the luggage that’s left behind by stragglers like us until the next morning. Tired and fed up, we drag ourselves to a hotel, after having briefly considered waiting around until 3 am, the opening time of the luggage office, to drive to Emporia after that, but I quickly shut that idea down. The hotel matches our state, battered and dirty. It looks like it, too, has spent all day and half the night waiting on and for planes at the airport. 5 hours of light sleep later, we hit the road again, and made our way to Emporia, all our luggage safely in the car.
At first approach, Emporia seems to me like a typical small American country town: houses with big yards, trucks rolling by, sheep and cows scattered through the surrounding fields, and mostly, as someone coming straight from the Sonoran Desert, the smell of freshly cut grass wafting up from sidewalks and well maintained front yards. But as we made our way through gridlock street, we saw old houses with columns seemingly holding them up, wooden front porches, some even triple storeyed. As we parked in our own driveway, we gazed up at our home for the week, a giant mansion, that could have hosted a Gatsby party, but instead was hosting the Shimano party. No less than four lounges were on the first floor, creaky wooden floors, thick, heavy oak doors, and we counted two grandfather clocks. This was a part of America I had not yet seen, and I loved discovering it.
The days after were spent trying to recover from the lengthy trip, between pre-rides of the start finish in good company, packet pick-ups and meeting up with friends at Merchant Cycles.
I was polishing all the details for the race (nutrition plan, morning-of schedule, equipment gathering, GPX viewing…) but on Friday, there was still one thing missing: my gels. CCB had sent some over in the week, but UPS failed its three-day-shipping promise. As I realized less than 24h before the race that I wouldn’t be receiving them, we went on a mission to find enough sugar for the long day that awaited me. So instead of spending the afternoon relaxing and napping, I had some more running around to rearranging nutrition plans to do. I mobilized all my contacts: find me some gels, please! And after a panic trip to the expo, I gathered a miss-match of gels, enough for two Unbounds.
With the stressors mostly under control, I could relax, eat enough to make my stomach hurt, and then eat some more, and go to bed with surprisingly low nerves. Tomorrow would be race day.
The bike specs:
Tires:
I hesitated for a long time on whether to run 45s or 50s, but given the rain that the area had received the weeks before, I decided to play it safe and avoid lack of clearance by running a smaller tire, 45s it was. I followed advice that was given to me by no other than Rob Britton, the Unbound XL champion, and opted for traction on the front in the form of the Schwalbe G-ONE Rx and speed in the rear, running the Schwalbe G-ONE RS. Spoiler alert: they were phenomenal. The smooth crown of the RS made the riding fast, and the nobs provided me the confidence to corner in loose turns.
Chain:
I prewaxed two chains before making the trip out, and put a fresh one on the day before. I use Silca’s wax with the endurance chip. The waxed pins don’t accumulate dirt the way that lubed chains do. On a course like this one, there was a dust coming up from the road, and we rode through dozens of mud puddles. I reapplied Silca’s Synergetic lube at the first feed zone. I never heard it squeak once!
Nutrition:
I’ve been Working with Sarah and Racer Edge Nutrition, it’s helped me feel confident in my nutrition pan. I had written a nutrition plan beforehand: put simply, I would drink 20g of carbs, and consume two 50g gels every hour, planning on eating something savory (pretzels) after the feedzones, and having a stash of Scandinavian Swimmers in case to fill in some gaps. Having not received those gels, and ending up with 30g ones, I frantically rearranged my nutrition spreadsheet the evening before. I was planning on starting with enough for 4 hours and pick up a pack with 1.5L bladder and two bottles at each feed zone.
The plan:
Having never ridden, let alone raced on most of the course, I relied on information I gathered from others and from studying Heather Jackson’s Strava file from last year, where she finished with the lead group. From these two things, I patched together a stem sheet, marking techy sections, climbs, and feed zones, trying to visualize myself in each of these zones, and the effort that I would have to put out. I also had the course on my bike computer, I would ride with the map, below which would appear the time and distance.
Helmet:
I went with the Lazer Vento. I briefly considered following the trend in road cycling and get the Lazer TT helmet. But I thought I would be so self-conscious that it would not be worth it! Next year maybe…
Groupset:
I ran the Shimano GRX di2. It ran amazingly, I didn’t have any issue whatsoever with it!
Keep your eyes open for the next write-up about the race itself!