Once a year, the gravel community turns all eyes with a laser-like focus to Emporia, Kansas. Winning Unbound Gravel is a coveted prize, whether the signature 200-mile event or one of the other four distances. The race started out in 2006 with under 40 riders, all men, and now captures the imagination around the globe with some of the best men’s and women’s riders from across disciplines, drawn to the Flint Hills of the central US plains to capture gravel’s biggest prize.
Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycles-SRAM) claimed one of the few big gravel results missing from his palmares when he won the elite men’s race last year. Carolin Schiff (Canyon CLLCTV) delivered a debut performance in 2023 that shone through the mud and rain-soaked edition, leaving no doubt that she had found her cycling home when she fully committed to gravel at the start of the season.
