Unbound was an unlikely candidate to become the most important gravel race in the world.
It began in Kansas, a state most people drive through or fly over, in a rural town with an even smaller cycling community. Back in 2006, there were only a handful of other events that could accurately be categorised as gravel races.
It’s not that the deck was stacked against Unbound, then named Dirty Kanza; it’s that founders Jim Cummins and Joel Dyke were playing with an entirely different deck of cards, with no inclination of what the race they created would become – or how it would reshape cycling.
“Joel Dyke and I founded the event for one simple reason,” Cummins tells BikeRadar. “We wanted the event to exist so that we could ride it. We knew that if we didn't create it, most likely nobody else would.”
I was one of the 34 racers who embarked on the first edition of Unbound in 2006. I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into. Yet, as soon as I crossed the finish line for the first time, which was actually just a pop-up tent in a hotel parking lot, I was hooked.
Since the inaugural Unbound 200, I’ve tried my luck on nine other occasions, most recently in 2023. I’ve had some triumphs and some failures, and it’s been one heck of a ride watching this once-niche event become a globally recognised race. This is the story behind how it happened.
Five little-known facts about Unbound’s early years
- Unbound was part of an endurance mountain bike series called the Dirt Lovin’ Good Times Tour. Hence ‘Dirty’ in the original name
- Of the 34 starters of the inaugural Unbound 200, only 15 finished
- Riders were not allowed to use GPS navigation devices and relied on paper maps and cue sheets
- Compasses were a required piece of equipment
- Riders were expected to be primarily self-sufficient and could only receive assistance from their support crews at a single checkpoint midway through the 200-mile route
The building blocks of gravel greatness
Unbound wasn’t created in isolation. Cummins and Dyke drew inspiration from other endurance events taking place on backroads throughout the Midwest.
Within the state of Kansas, there was the Flint Hills Death Ride, which ran from 1993 until 2010. This was more of an endurance ride than a race, and the courses were shorter, generally around 80 miles in length. However, it was often held in the sweltering August heat.
While the Death Ride may have provided the backdrop, Trans Iowa, founded by Jeff Kerkove and Mark Stevenson the year before Unbound, created a framework to follow with checkpoints, cue sheets for course navigation, and cut-off times to keep riders on pace.
“Joel Dyke decided to come and ride in Trans Iowa to ‘see what it was all about’,” recalls Stevenson. “I know that Jim and Joel had originally intended to have their event be a cross-state, or at least a point-to-point event, like we had with the original Trans Iowas. However, they landed on a loop course in the Flint Hills.”
Stevenson, better known to many gravel cyclists by his online moniker ‘Guitar Ted’, likes to say Trans Iowa was “the first domino to fall” in the evolution of modern gravel racing.
Stevenson promoted Trans Iowa from 2005 to 2018 and was instrumental in amplifying gravel riding through his blogging and reportage. More than any other individual, he is responsible for gravel cycling as we know it today, and he was duly inducted into the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame in 2022.
So why did Unbound, and not Trans Iowa, become the most recognised gravel race in the world? Difficulty and desire. Trans Iowa was longer and more difficult (generally averaging between 320 and 340 miles), thereby drawing smaller fields. It also took place in April, which is often cold and wet in Iowa.
Not that Unbound hasn’t had its share of bad weather over the years, but Trans Iowa had a year when conditions were so bad that nobody finished. Last, and perhaps most important, there was a concerted effort on Stevenson’s part to retain Trans Iowa’s intimate, grassroots nature.
Cummins and Life Time (the current organising body behind Unbound), on the other hand, focused on growing Unbound into the premier gravel race it is today.
Branching out beyond the original 200-mile course to include beginner-friendly 25- and 50-mile options and a more difficult 350-mile Unbound XL meant there was a race for everyone.
Adding a gravel-cycling expo, which is quickly becoming the Sea Otter of gravel, also sets Unbound apart from similar gravel grinders.
A sense of place
The elements that made Emporia an improbable cycling hotbed (its remote location in a fly-over state) also worked in its favour as gravel cycling grew. What the town lacked in cycling infrastructure, it made up for in location. Emporia sits on the eastern edge of one of the most beautiful yet under-appreciated landscapes in the United States, the Flint Hills.
This region, often called the last great expanse of tallgrass prairie in North America, stretches across eastern Kansas and into north-central Oklahoma. The thin soil and rocky terrain that made the area unsuitable for farming inadvertently preserved the prairie ecosystem and open rangelands we cyclists are privileged to enjoy today.
Despite Kansas’ reputation as a flat state, the Flint Hills are typified by rolling terrain and rocky outcroppings. As for the name, the abundant flint rock, or chert, that covers many gravel roads was shaped into arrowheads and other tools by the region’s indigenous peoples. Today, these razor-sharp rocks slice easily through gravel tyres, so plan accordingly.
Anyone who has seen images from Unbound can appreciate these stunning vistas. But views alone don’t build a world-class bike race. Emporia embraced the event from its early years in a way many other Kansas communities may not have. This small college town of fewer than 25,000 residents has a knack of supporting off-beat sporting events, such as the Disc Golf World Championships.
Emporia’s willingness to host thousands of cyclists each June has spurred economic development and revitalised its downtown. According to the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas, activities associated with Unbound contribute more than 5 million dollars to the local economy annually.
Turning the corner
Word spread in the years following the inaugural event and more riders wanted to try their luck. In 2010, Joel Dyke left Unbound to focus on frame building, with Cummins remaining at the helm.
“It was about this same time that I began to see a faint vision of what the event could become,” Cummins says. “I knew I couldn't build the event alone. Kristi Mohn was a lifelong Emporia resident and a successful entrepreneur. She had served as our volunteer coordinator and liaison to all the Emporia local government agencies. I knew she would be the perfect partner.”
The numbers seem quaint today, but 2010 really was a breakout year for Unbound. Cummins increased the field size to 150 riders. Participants were allowed to receive support from their crews at every aid station rather than only at the mid-way point. GPS devices were even allowed, but only for emergency extraction from the course and not for navigation during the race.
Salsa Cycles signed on as Unbound’s title sponsor – a sign of things to come in the development of the first production gravel race bike, the Salsa Warbird.
“Over the next few years, we began to fine-tune our vision of where we wanted to take the event,” Cummins says. “We both knew the event had strong potential. And we were very intentional about growing the event slowly and systematically. But I think it would be accurate to say we drastically underestimated its potential.”
Growing pains
Sport is a mirror for society, and as gravel cycling became more popular, the event’s organisers found themselves under increasing pressure to change its name.
The name ‘Dirty Kanza’ was never intended to be derogatory. Kanza, Konza and Kansa are all variations on a name given to the Kaw people, who originally inhabited the region, by early Europeans. Yet a name that was generally accepted in 2006 felt very out of place in 2020.
In early 2020, as indigenous rights groups and members of the gravel cycling community petitioned for a name change, Life Time, which had acquired the event in 2018, responded by rebranding to ‘Unbound Gravel’.
Controversy reared its head a few weeks later when a social media post re-shared by Jim Cummins appeared to equate the murder of Rayshard Brooks at the hands of a police officer to a different police shooting that was ruled as justified. The outcry created by this post led to Cummins parting ways with Life Time shortly thereafter.
Although Cummins would have preferred to exit the event on better terms, he remains rightly proud of what he created. “I am particularly proud of our ‘grassroots’ heritage,” he says. “I think we were successful in keeping that grassroots feel for a lot of years, in spite of the astronomical growth. We always put as much emphasis on the shorter distances as we did the 200-milers.
“And we celebrated everyone's finish, regardless of the distance and the time it took to complete that distance.”
Professionalism problems
As Unbound draws more professionals, it’s becoming clear that the needs of the pro field are sometimes distinct from those of amateur athletes.
Changes to keep the playing field level have included staggered starts for the pro men, pro women, and amateurs, thereby giving each group a distinct race. All events in the 2024 Life Time Grand Prix, which includes Unbound, feature separate starts for the pro men and women to discourage drafting between groups.
In recent years, WorldTour road riders have joined the fray with varying degrees of success. The dynamics of gravel cycling are very different from professional road racing, and not every pro roadie is willing to see it that way – you’d better be able to fix your own mechanicals, because there’s no team car coming with a spare wheel or a fresh bike.
“There is certainly a pressure that comes from pros coming into the space, who have expectations that don't always align with what Unbound is – looking for us to remove mud, asking for other changes to make the event more accommodating for race conditions they want,” says Kristi Mohn, Unbound’s marketing manager.
“The bottom line is that while the event is growing and changing, there are pieces of what we do here in the Flint Hills that are simply part of the fabric of what makes Unbound special.
“It is not supposed to be easy – this event was designed to be challenging, a day on gravel with some friends that will provide epic stories and community building. In the grand scheme of things, we have to make sure that is the experience we provide.”
Is it still the same race?
Some of my fellow gravel riders who have been at it since the early 2000s, point to the sale to Life Time, or to the rebranding, as points at which Unbound ‘lost its soul’ or the so-called ‘spirit of gravel’ died. For my part, I’m no retro-grouch, nor am I sentimental about the grassroots vibe that has been lost.
Yes, I miss seeing the glint of a single helmet on the horizon and knowing I’ll have to push hard for the next hour to catch them. I miss riding in total solitude as dusk settles over the prairie and pushing through the pain in a last-ditch effort to reach the finish line before sunset.
These experiences will never again be part of Unbound. The fields are just too large for these moments to exist. Thankfully, there are 364 other days in the year that I can experience the beautiful isolation of riding through the Flint Hills.
Is Unbound perfect? Absolutely not.
But if we’re discussing what has been lost – or gained – as Unbound has evolved, I will gladly trade my romantic notions of gravel’s formative years for how inclusive the race has become and the role it continues to play in getting more people – from all walks of life – involved in cycling.
