At 6:30am on Saturday, May 30, Unbound Gravel erupted into chaos. The peloton had just entered the first mud section of the race, and hundreds of riders came to a standstill. They grabbed their paint sticks and started whacking away at the mud, attempting to clear as much debris as possible. Most bikes were completely clogged, their wheels unable to turn, and so riders began putting them on their backs and running.
I joined my fellow racers in jogging to the top of the hill with a mud-clogged bike, and it took us all a few minutes to get going again. This was ‘Mudbound’ 2026, and I was in survival mode.
I’d known about the biggest race in gravel for many years, but I had yet to line up for the race in Emporia, Kansas. After years of chasing a professional road racing contract, I took a step back from racing in 2020 and began riding on Zwift. It didn’t take long until I was Zwift racing five days a week, rediscovering my love for the sport from the comfort of my own home. My numbers were improving, and my competitiveness returned.
In 2025, I started thinking about gravel racing, and only a year later, I found myself signing up for the Unbound Gravel Elite 200. I didn’t want to dip my toe into the shorter distances; I wanted to go straight into competing with the pros.
As a working husband and amateur cyclist, I don’t have as much time to train as gravel pros. Riders like Romain Bardet, Keegan Swenson, and Matthew Beers can train 30 hours per week if they want to. Their job is to ride a bike and win races. My job is to write, coach, manage, and do things other than ride my bike. So I came into Unbound having trained 10-15 hours per week for the past few months. Would it be enough to keep up with the pros at Unbound?
My Unbound Gravel Training Plan
90% of my training is done indoors. It’s a personal preference that I’ve had for most of my cycling career, and for good reason. Outdoor riding isn’t always feasible when you live in a cold climate. Why would I spend 20 minutes getting dressed for a one-hour ride in sub-freezing temperatures?
Indoor training is also time-efficient. I’ll never waste time coasting down a hill or sitting at a traffic light. There are many reasons that I prefer indoor training, yet I still got outside for a few gravel training rides before Unbound. The 207-mile gravel race wasn’t my only goal for the year, so I was still doing plenty of VO2 Max intervals and explosive work, rather than 3×20 minutes in zone three. Here is an example week of my training one month before Unbound.
(Image credit: TrainingPeaks)
In the weeks leading up to Unbound, I did a last-minute training block in an attempt to peak for the 207-mile race, putting together a 15- and 14-hour week just before Unbound. This was followed by a 10-day taper to ensure I was rested and fresh for Unbound. Obviously, 15 hours on the bike isn’t much compared to the pros, but I added more intensity to really drive home the ‘overload’ feeling in the legs during this block.
In hindsight, I think I made a mistake here. Instead of upping my weekly volume for a couple of weeks, I think I would have benefited more from doing two to three’race simulation’ rides. These would be five to six hours in the saddle, front-loaded with intervals followed by long blocks of zone two and zone three. This would prepare my body for the effort I’d experience at Unbound, but to be honest, I was a bit scared of these sessions. It’s quite daunting to picture yourself smashing a six-hour training ride during a typical work week.
Overall, my fitness was quite good coming into Unbound. Unlike the pros, I hadn’t trained the house down, but I was in good form, having won the Wisconsin State Crit two weeks before Unbound. The legs were there; now I just needed to be prepared for anything and everything.
The 3am thunderstorm was foreshadowing
I woke up the morning of Unbound to the rumbles of thunder in the distance. There had been rumours of overnight rain, and when I rolled over in my hotel bed to check the weather radar, I knew it was happening. The radar was bright red, and there was a massive storm cloud just south of Emporia, dumping rain on the first 30 miles of the course. I knew there would be a mud section there, but few of us realised how much time we would spend in the mud.
I had done everything in my power to prepare for Unbound, and there isn’t a checklist quite like it. How can you possibly prepare for 207 miles in variable weather conditions, three aid stations, zero neutral support, questionable cell phone reception, and millions of rocks that could slice your tyre open at any moment?
Packing for Unbound was almost as stressful as racing Unbound. I envied the pros who had the full support of mechanics, soigneurs, and other staff. That is one of the biggest divides in modern day gravel racing – half the Elite field has a team of professionals to support them, while the rest of us have to make do with everything and everyone we can scrape together. A local race is one thing – asking friends and family to drive 10 hours to the middle of nowhere in Kansas is another.
My support system fell apart the morning of Unbound. After weeks and months of planning, the support system I thought I had was nowhere to be found. So there I was, 10 minutes before the start of the race, frantically packing my bottles into drop bags that Life Time would graciously take to the second and third aid stations. I wouldn’t have anyone at the first aid station due to the failure of communication, which meant I would have to carry enough fuel to make it to the second aid station around four hours into the race.
The stress levels were off the charts, but if I’ve learned anything from gravel racing, it’s that stressing about stress only makes things worse. The coolest and calmest riders are those who win the race. Anyone who panics loses all hope for a result – this was another piece of foreshadowing for the eventual winner, Mads Würtz Schmidt, who suffered a tyre-busting flat while in the lead of the race. But you already know how his race went. Back to me, the everyday amateur who just ran to the start line with five minutes to go.
It was 5:50am when we rolled over the start line in Emporia, and within seconds: chaos. Instead of turning left on the official race route, the lead moto had us turn right. Hundreds of bike computers chirped like a robotic symphony as we looped around town and back onto the correct course. The neutral zone was nothing spectacular, a few jockeying for position, but nothing like the calamity of last year’s Big Sugar, where we rode straight into oncoming traffic.
As we hit the first mud sector at mile 12, the peloton relaxed because the mud was packed and smooth. But as we turned left at mile 15, the field exploded on a thick uphill mud section.
Mud and deep puddles along the Unbound Gravel 200 route (Image credit: Justin Britton/Life Time Grand Prix)
Almost every rider jumped off their bikes, grabbed their paint stick, and started swiping at the chunks of peanut butter mud glued to their frame. Wheels stopped spinning, drivetrains were ruined, and more than a few curse words were flying through the air. “This race sucks,” I heard one rider say as we were scraping mud off our bikes.
The next few hours were… hilarious. I’ve struggled to search for other words to describe these miserable moments. The suffering was off the charts, we were all soaked and caked in mud, our bikes sounded terrible, and our chains were skipping like children on a schoolground.
I made it a few miles before my chain threw itself off its ring and onto my pedal. Thankfully, I noticed it right away, so I coasted to a stop and tried to remount the chain. My muddy fingers could hardly grasp it, and it took a few tries before the teeth finally stuck. I got caught by US Gravel National Champion Bradyn Lange, and that boosted my morale. If Lange was back here – a professional rider with the best equipment there is and an entire support crew – then I must not be doing that bad.
I don’t know what kind of power Lange was pushing at this point of the race, but I averaged 325 watts for half an hour sitting on his wheel. Normally, that wouldn’t be a crazy effort for me, but I also knew that we had more than seven hours to go.
By the time we hit Texaco Hill, the longest climb of the race, I was gritting my teeth just to stay with my chase group. I knew the leaders were miles ahead, but I also knew that I was likely in 30-50th position at this point in the race. Considering where I was coming from, I was more than happy to be in this position. When my group splintered before aid station two, I was feeling OK. A few pros had flown past me, but I was still chugging along.
At the second aid station, I found my drop bag, grabbed a few bottles, and made my way back onto the pedals. I didn’t have a crew to power wash my bike, and who knows how many watts I was losing by continuing with mud in my drivetrain. Either way, I made my way out of the aid station and saw two notable riders up ahead: Payson McElveen and Taylor Phinney. “Those guys are really good,” I thought to myself. If I’m catching them at this point in the race, then I must be doing pretty well.
Our chase group grew to six as we turned east, and this is where my race took a turn for the worse.
A heavy thunderstorm began dumping rain on top of us, and the headwind grew stronger as we inched through the mud. Every hill felt like a mountain, and we were moving at a snail’s pace with no end in sight.
The rain clouds descended on Unbound Gravel this year, with deep sections of water forming along the route (Image credit: Jason Ebberts/Life Time Grand Prix)
Lightning struck the ground all around us – I wasn’t the only one who thought this was extremely dangerous. We were riding in the open fields of Kansas, and I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if the strikes became a bit too close.
Thankfully, none of us got struck by lightning, but I still suffered a catastrophic injury at this moment in the race. While riding through the mud, straight into a headwind, in the middle of a thunderstorm, there was no choice but to take our sunglasses off. Keegan Swenson – who finished fifth on the day – said that he wore a prototype pair of ROKA sunglasses that had tear-off lenses. That was perhaps the only thing that could have saved us in these weather conditions, but I didn’t have a pair of the prototypes.
I rode without glasses, squinting and scrunching my face in an attempt to protect my eyes, but it wasn’t enough. Specks of dirt, gravel, and grit made their way into my eyes, and there was nothing I could do. My hands, gloves, and clothing were covered in mud, so I had nothing to wipe my glasses with. I stopped on the side of the road multiple times in an attempt to relieve the pain, but nothing worked. I started riding with one eye closed – if you find any pictures of me during the race, it probably looks like I’m winking at the camera. But the reality was, I was riding with one eye.
My morale was ruined, and the pain became unbearable.
48 hours later, my vision is still blurry out of my left eye (Image credit: Zach Nehr)
The diagnosis, I would find out later at the doctor’s office, was a scratched cornea. At some point, I had gotten so much dirt and gravel in my eye that it had actually sliced the surface. It made sense that the pain was a 10 out of 10 with 100 miles to go. But being the stupid cyclist I am, I wanted to finish the race. My hopes for a top result were gone, but at least I could say that I finished.
I rode with one eye for an hour and a half, but the pain kept getting worse. The sketchy roads became dangerous, and I was worried I’d do permanent damage to my eye by continuing for four more hours. At mile 127, I pulled the plug and made the decision to ride back to Emporia. I limped back into town, covering one eye and on the edge of tears. I had put so much into this – months of physical and mental preparation, hundreds of training hours, so many days of packing and planning – and now it was all over. Just like that, my Unbound had come to an end.
What went well – gravel racing tips
The biggest takeaway I had from Unbound was this: be prepared for anything.
Now that is a big statement, and being prepared means different things to different people. I was never going to have a team bus at Unbound with a mechanic ready to switch out my tyres and pedals an hour before the race. But that is a luxury that many gravel pros have.
From my perspective as an amateur, being prepared for anything meant creating a massive packing list before I left Wisconsin. It meant heat training with my CORE suit in case the race was hot and dry. It meant having a bike like the Lauf Seigla with massive tyre clearance in case there was mud. And it meant having tons of nutrition on board for a 10-hour effort.
In a race of this length, comfort is key, especially at the contact points. Any little niggle can turn into a chronic injury when you’re pushing on the pedals for nearly half a day. Thankfully, I found that my custom Posedla saddle eliminated pain downstairs, Solestar BLK insoles that helped my feet stay strong, and I had done months of gym work to prepare for the full-body beating of Unbound.
My preparation was dialled. I did everything in my power to prepare for Unbound, and in the end, the race-ruining events were mostly outside my control. But I still made a few mistakes.
What I would do differently next time
Note to self: when you see 50 riders in front of you cleaning mud off their bikes, hop off the saddle and run to the grass immediately.
In the mud sector at mile 15, I rode too far into the mud before making my way to the grass. Those few extra pedal strokes clogged my bike with mud and left me wasting precious time scraping the chunks off my frame. I should have hopped off the bike sooner.
Another mistake came from one of my biggest weaknesses in cycling: positioning. I often struggle to find my way to the front third of the peloton, and once I’m there, I sometimes get scared and drop back. At this year’s Unbound, I actually made my way into a good position at mile 12. But then I relaxed when I saw the mud was smoother than advertised. I slid to the back of the group, and by the time we hit the real mud sector, I was 30 seconds behind the leaders just by virtue of being at the back of the line.
In fact, I did 50 watts more than the leaders through the mud sector (leaders of a similar weight). Yet, I was minutes behind. That is a failure by position, not by fitness.
When it comes to support, I know that I lost precious time and energy compared to the pros. It isn’t feasible for every amateur to have a full support crew at Unbound, but next time, I know I need to have more. The support that I thought I had left me hanging at the last minute, so I didn’t have a power washer or hand-ups in the aid stations. Had I been in a leading position, I would’ve lost too much ground to the pros with full support crews. And when it comes to riding six hours on a muddy drivetrain, who knows how many watts I was losing compared to those who had their bikes power-washed? I’d love to see that study – I’m looking at you, Dylan Johnson.
My mud-soaked Lauf Seigla and I after Barry-Roubaix Gravel (Image credit: Zach Nehr)Can amateurs compete with pros in a 200-mile gravel race?
This is the question that I pondered on the 10-hour drive to and from Emporia, Kansas. At first, I went back and forth with myself. Amateurs vs pros – can one upset the other? But the more I thought about it, the more the answer became obvious. I was driving all the way to Emporia, so of course I believed it was possible. If I didn’t, I would’ve stayed at home.
When you look at the power files, pacing, and timing, I truly believe that an amateur can match the pros. Countless professional riders DNFed at this year’s Unbound. Some suffered crashes, others racing-ending mechanicals. Yy tyres were filled up with an unreleased sealant the day before the race, and I never flatted on my 50mm Panaracer tyres. With a slightly smarter mindset, I could’ve gotten through the mud faster than most. If I made the right decisions, the time savings were there.
However, I lost time and efficiency by not having a power washer at the aid stations. But during a dry Unbound when drivetrain-caking isn’t a factor, I wouldn’t have lost significant time. I grabbed my bottles and USWE hydration pack as quickly as the pros. In fact, I caught some of them that had stopped for much longer.
Finally, when you look at the power output of the podium, anything seems possible. Those who succeed at Unbound are those who can race for 9-10 hours without imploding. No one is doing 400 watts for 20 minutes at the end of Unbound. Instead, it seems like anyone who can hold 300 watts in the final two to three hours of Unbound is destined for the podium. The rest of the peloton cracks. I was hoping to see what my legs had left in them, but my eye had other ideas.
Will I be back next year? It’s hard to say. The wounds are still fresh – literally – as it’s still blurry to see out of my left eye. I wonder how many of my competitors have vision problems this week. Others suffered crashes and broken bikes. It was an unforgettable Unbound, one that will stay burned into our memories forever.
To answer the question from the title of this article… when it’s muddy, the answer is ‘No.’