In an exclusive interview, the Kiwi privateer talks about the unorthodox approach that toppled multi-time series champion Keegan Swenson and reshaped the gravel hierarchy.
Josh Weinberg, Scott USA, SBT GRVL
By the time autumn rolled around, Cameron Jones had time to breathe. The bike was hung up, the legs were tired, and the season that took him from the gravel backroads of Kansas to the thin air of Leadville was behind him. After a whirlwind year, Jones found quiet: camping, shuttling, and watching the leaves fall – a stark contrast to the chaos of going from competing for a Life Time Grand Prix wildcard to dethroning the sport’s dominant rider, Keegan Swenson, as overall series champion.
A year ago, Jones wasn’t even on the series’ start list. He’d been left off the Grand Prix roster entirely, his 2024 season – including eighth place at the Sea Otter Classic Fuego XL and 17th at Unbound – somehow not enough to earn him a spot among the invite-only elite. But rejection became fuel. From the moment he lined up at the 2025 Sea Otter Gravel round as a wildcard entry, the 25-year-old from New Zealand was racing with something to prove, and by the time he rolled into Emporia, Kansas for Unbound, he didn’t just prove he belonged. He claimed gravel’s biggest victory and set the stage for an equally remarkable feat: becoming overall champion of a series he hadn’t been invited to race at all.
How Cameron Jones fueled his way to Unbound glory
Jones kept his engine running at top shape for nine hours with 200 g of carbs per hour from a homemade energy drink, jam sandwiches, and a little ‘bro science.’
With the season wrapped up, Jones shared his thoughts on his remarkable season. From his early-season motivation to becoming the first athlete to end Swenson’s reign in the series, along with his rudimentary approach to equipment testing, Jones is an open book, a rider who works with what he’s got and lets his legs do the talking.
From rejection to redemption
The 2025 season got off to a bumpy start for Jones. After a 2024 debut in the US gravel scene, the Life Time Grand Prix was the target until he discovered he hadn’t made the cut, failing to be selected for one of the 22 automatic roster spots in the overall series.
“That was a bit of a hit because I put a lot of effort into last season to try and get results at Life Time races against these guys to show I was good enough,” Jones explained. In addition to his strong showings at Sea Otter and Unbound, Jones raced to 15th place at SBT GRVL, and 4th in the overall general classification of the Oregon Trail five-day stage race. He thought that would be enough, until it wasn’t.
Jones rode to top-20 finishes at Unbound and SBT GRVL, catching the eye of his competitors in his debut season.
It wasn’t just Jones who was surprised. “Keegan and a bunch of the guys even messaged Life Time asking why I wasn’t in,” he said. The support boosted his confidence, but 2025 still wasn’t shaping up as planned. Rather than letting the setback derail him, Jones used it as motivation. “It definitely gave me a bit of extra fuel to train and make sure I could prove a point,” he said.
Although he had not automatically been included in the series, there was still a chance to build the season he had hoped for. Having applied to be part of the series, he was eligible for one of the three wildcard spots. Those allowed the best-placed riders based on accumulated points after Sea Otter and Unbound to gain entry to the Life Time GP series overall.
At Sea Otter in Monterey, California he took to the start surrounded by the full Grand Prix roster – the same names that had initially been chosen over him. In 2024 the Sea Otter round was the Fuego XL mountain bike race, but for 2025 it shifted to a longer gravel race. The course was dusty, technical, and brutally fast – the kind of racing that suited Jones’ strengths. And he rode like his season hung in the balance, because in many ways, it did.
When the dust settled, he finished 12th, right in the middle of the series field. It wasn’t a fluke or a stroke of luck – it was a statement. The measured Kiwi, absent from the original script, had forced his way into the conversation.
From that point on, Jones’ season began to gather momentum. What felt like rejection became the perfect catalyst, proof that sometimes, being told you’re not good enough is the best motivation.
The Breakthrough: Unbound
After that first taste of proving himself at Sea Otter, the question became: could he do it again, when it mattered most? For Jones, that answer came in the Kansas heat.
Unbound was always the goal. Jones didn’t hide it; it was the race he’d built his entire 2025 season around. He’d raced Unbound once before. His 17th place in 2024 was a respectable result for the privateer, but in Jones’ eyes it was more a lesson in strategy and focus. “I didn’t have the smoothest race, strategy-wise,” he said, looking back. That debut proved he had the legs to compete, but he needed to minimise the chaos, avoid mechanical issues, dial his nutrition, and benefit from a little good fortune. For 2025, he wasn’t there to survive; he was there to win.
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