 These are not sustainable numbers for me. In fact, these are the kind of numbers that I usually see in a three hour race, not a 10 plus hour one. But I had caught the front group and I was hoping that they would ease up on the pace, giving me some time to recover. This was not the case. Last weekend was what is now starting to be coined the Super Bowl of gravel racing, the Unbound 200. This is an apt title too because every year this event seems to attract more and more media attention and more and more big names, including former and current world tour pro road racers, professional mountain bike racers, and of course the new crop of professional gravel racers as well. And given that fact, this was one of my A races for the year that I had planned to peak for. And going into it, I felt I had done a good job of doing just that. Two weeks prior to this race, I had raced many of the favorites at the gravel loco's 150 and I was pleased with the top five performance. On top of that, I'd been doing some heat acclimation training because I knew that the high temperatures on race day would be a deciding factor. Expect a full video on the science of heat acclimation in the near future. At Unbound, they changed the course every year and this year's course was 206 miles or 331 kilometers with 11,000 feet of climbing or 3,350 meters. The best way to describe the climbing in this race is rolling hills. None of the climbs take more than two minutes but they come one after another for the majority of the 200 mile course. The gravel that you see in this race is a mix of everything but the flint hills are notorious for sharp rocks which means flat tires are extremely common here. Wind is also a huge factor in this race and on race day it was looking like we were going to have a massive headwind in the second half of the race on the way back to the finish. The race started with a fairly easy pace requiring a normalized power of only 227 watts to stay up with the front group for the first hour. One rider did try for a solo breakaway early but it seemed as though no one was too worried about giving him a bit of an advantage. Around mile 25 though the road narrowed and the gravel got significantly more technical. I witnessed two crashes happen in these early technical sections right in front of me, one of which included one of the race favorites Quinn Simmons. Riders were also starting to get flats and I tried my best to stay light on my bike and avoid large rocks in the gravel but sure enough around mile 40 on a descent I got my first puncture of the race. This section was loaded with baseball-sized sharp gravel chunks and was an absolute tire shredder. When I stopped to fix my tire I looked around and saw seven or eight riders doing the exact same thing. Luckily though I was able to plug it and didn't have to put a tube in so this flat only cost me about two minutes. After this though came my first tactical error of the race. Because it was still early and my legs felt great and I didn't want to give up the fight for a top placing I decided to chase back on at a much higher power than what I know is sustainable for the entire race. This chase took 53 minutes and required a normalized power of 320 watts and an average power of 291. These are not sustainable numbers for me. In fact these are the kind of numbers that I usually see in a three hour race not a 10 plus hour one but I had caught the front group and I was hoping that they would ease up on the pace giving me some time to recover. This was not the case. The next hour and 13 minutes required a normalized power of 282 watts and in this time period we went through the first two checkpoints where we could restock on fuel and water with our pit crews. This is where I made my second big tactical error of the race. I had a spare wheel set in the pits in case of tire problems and I should have switched it out at this point given that I had put a plug in my tire but I didn't want to lose contact with the front group again and have to chase back on again plus my tire had been holding for the last 20 miles. Unfortunately though probably 10 miles later my tire started to go soft again. It was a very slow leak and given that I was still with the front group I was hoping that the sealant in the tire would just seal it and I would be able to continue. A couple miles later though the front group dropped me and I went and checked my tire and I was probably riding on about 10 psi. I was out of CO2s at this point and as fellow racers passed I asked if any of them had CO2s that I could use. I borrowed two CO2s from two different riders before I got my tire fully inflated and holding air. Thank you to the riders that lended me your CO2s, I'm sorry I don't know your name to give you a proper shout out. Fortunately there's a high level of sportsmanship in gravel racing. Key learn that one for me. How to be a weight weenie 101. Never bring tools with you to fix a flat tire when you're riding with other people because they're bound to be carrying that stuff for you already. With the increased technicality of some of the early sections on the course this year the number of riders dealing with flat tires was staggering. I knew that punctures were common at this race but it seemed as though half if not more of the favorites were taken out of contention with flats. I was determined to not let flat tires ruin my race though. Given how long this race is if you can just make it to the finish in a decent time, even if you've had issues, you'd be surprised at how well you can place simply because you're one of the survivors. About five hours and 100 miles into the race though I started to pay for my earlier efforts to catch back on and it would take me a while to recover. I caught on to a chasing group of five but got dropped soon after on a climb. It was also starting to get extremely hot with temperatures in the high 80 degrees Fahrenheit or about 30 degrees Celsius and I felt like I couldn't drink enough fluid. This second leg between the two aid stations I had six bottles with me. Two in my frame, two in a custom moose packs frame bag that I had specifically designed for Unbound that would hold two bottles and two smaller ones in my back pockets. The reason for this frame bag water bottle setup is because like Colin Strickland I wanted to avoid using a hydration pack or as he puts it a backpack style water reservoir which would be heavier, less aerodynamic, trap heat on my back and be more fatiguing for my upper body. Now I'll admit that my solution was not nearly as ingenious as his custom aero frame bag with a bladder in it but it still did work surprisingly well. That being said all of this fluid was still not nearly enough and if it wasn't for the two neutral water stations between aid one and two I would have been screwed. At these aid stations I was dumping cold water all over my body in attempts to cool myself off and it's amazing what this did for my power. I would leave the aid station putting out 40 more watts and then 20 minutes later after drying off in the hot sun my power would come right back down again. Around mile 110 I started to recover and I started to catch riders as well. Every time I saw a rider up in the distance this was good motivation to hunt them down and hopefully one of them would be strong enough to work with me and we could share time in the wind and up our average speed. This wouldn't really happen until I caught Jasper Akalon. I estimate what place we were in and he estimated around 15th and he seemed eager to catch some riders before the finish and trade polls. Unfortunately though this wouldn't last long. We rolled into the second and final aid station at mile 155 and after a quick refill we were off in hot pursuit but a mile and a half down the road I got another flat and this hole was big enough that I lost all the air in my tire almost immediately and given that I was out of CO2's I really only had one option at this point. Beers in the sag wagon turn around ride a mile and a half back to the aid station on a flat switch the wheel out and then continue on. These are the kind of moments where it can be really easy to just say screw this this is obviously not my day I'm already at the aid station with the car right there just drive me back to the start finish I'm done with this race and there were a lot of top contenders that didn't finish. I think this is a difference in mentality between pro road racers and ultra endurance racers which is the side of the sport that I come from. I have DNF races before and it sucks no matter how bad you feel or how many mechanicals you've had that day the worst feeling that you're going to experience that day is when it sinks in that you did not finish and if you can just make it to the finish line at the very least you're going to have a good story to tell take it from Will Wubner who broke his arm at mile 200 of 350 and route to a second place finish in the unbound XL race that's probably the most inspirational story of the whole weekend now I'm not saying that if you break your arm you should just keep racing if you're injured putting your health at risk or if your bike is damaged beyond repair then obviously don't be stupid but my mentality when it comes to racing is do everything you can to make it to the finish and fight for every position along the way all right I apologize for getting up on my soapbox there for a minute but these are the actual conversations that I have to have with myself in moments like these when the race isn't going the way I want it to so I leave the last aid station at mile 155 with a fresh wheel and a fresh tire and fortunately the last 50 miles of the race goes smoothly and for the most part I was solo for the last quarter of the race the heat was a major factor at this point in the day there were actually two creek crossings where I just got off my bike dunked myself in the creek and then hopped back on again and kept going there was even a man handing out water at 15 miles to go and again I stopped and poured water on myself and then kept going this may seem like a weird tactic in a race because obviously if you stop that's lowering your average speed but I actually figured that it would help my average speed because every time that I did this my power would go up for about 20 minutes before I dried off again I wanted to conserve the water on my bike for drinking but when I got in the last 10 miles and realized I had enough water to make it to the finish I started dumping water from my bottles onto my body as well for this last 50 miles of the race a normalized power of just 238 was all I had left shockingly though this was actually enough power to be moving up in places in the last 50 miles as opposed to drifting back I caught and passed four riders in this section and by the end came through in 12th place in a time of 11 16 28 a little under an hour behind the winner Ian Boswell all right let's look at some race stats the course was 206 miles but because I had to turn around right after the second aid station to swap wheels I actually ended up riding 210 miles on the day my normalized power was 258 and my average power was 220 I had an average heart rate of 155 a max heart rate of 185 and an average speed of 18.6 miles per hour or just under 30 kilometers per hour my tss for the race was a whopping 612 I have done this race before in 2018 and despite placing better with a 9th place I finished 35 minutes slower with less distance had a normalized power that was 25 watts lower and an average speed that was a full mile per hour slower which really speaks to how crazy the level of competition has gotten here now while I am pleased with my effort on the day and I feel like I gave this race everything I had the execution was far from perfect tire setup is a huge part of the gravel game and I went into this race with complete confidence last time I did this race I had no flat tire issues whatsoever and this time I was running meteor tires and tire inserts so I really wasn't too worried about it I left this race scratching my head though and looking at the social media posts from many of the top contenders it seems like a lot of them are in the same boat tell me about it man my 19 millimeter silk track tubulars double-flatted on the first speed bump rolling out of town it's a shame too because I was in the lead at that point also the specialized pathfinder pro which I had been running earlier this year took first and second on the day with seemingly minimal issues so yeah even though I have a full year before I do this event again I found myself thinking a lot about tire setup for this race over the past week and researching dozens of different options I don't know what the right answer is right now but one thing's for sure always err on the side of more flat protection for unbound I'll be sure to keep you guys posted thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video be sure to give it a like subscribe for more cycling videos just like this one and share this video with your cycling friends I'll see you in the next one