Unbound Gravel 100: 20-year-old Kylee Hanel overcomes mud and stop for train to win women’s race

“I did what I came here to do – win the U23 women’s race and finish top 50 overall,” Hanel told Cyclingnews later Saturday afternoon. She came into Unbound after finishing third overall at Tour de Bloom, riding the road for Aegix x LOE.

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However, her gravel victory wasn’t a sure thing. She said the mud on Towers Climb could have been a tragic setback, and then a train stopped her progress on the back half of the route.

“Oh, you saw the mud coming, and you saw it go all the way up the hill. I mean, you could see Towers and the mud for over half a mile. We walked a lot of the way and then I had to spend another five minutes cleaning at the creek. When you’re walking, there’s so much mud caked to your shoes your feet feel twice as heavy.

“We got stopped by a train, and I’m sitting there thinking at my last time check the next woman was two and a half minutes behind me,” said Hanel, adding that the train cost her two minutes.

The 20-year-old dug in, finishing 2:31 ahead of Samantha Johnson of Tennessee who finished second. Johnson held off Ellory Clason of Michigan by 14 seconds, both also in the LTGP U23 competition.

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Oehler rode solo for the win in the men’s race, finishing with a time of 5:04:39. The 28-year-old Ohio resident scored a huge improvement from the year before, when he came 14th.

He finished two minutes ahead of U23 riders Finn McKenzie of Blenheim, New Zealand and Oskar Stack-Michasiw of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Both McKenzie and Stack-Michasiw are also part of the U23 field for the Life Time Grand Prix, the Canadian fourth overall in the standings after Sea Otter Classic Gravel., where the New Zealander did not start.