It’s a well-trodden trope at this point. Decorated racers line up at Unbound Gravel, the 200-mile jaunt through the Flint Hills of Kansas, and are surprised at the race dynamics, brutal conditions, and equipment-destroying terrain at the marquee gravel event.
Last year, there was much hype around the attendance of then-Gravel World Champion Matej Mohoric, but even the rainbow jersey prowess of the Slovenian was no match for Unbound. Mohoric double-punctured, and DNF’d along with his Bahrain Victorious teammates after the halfway mark on the course.
The latest WorldTour pro to dip his toes into Unbound is Thomas De Gendt. The Belgian is not lacking in tactical know-how or pure power, having won stages in all three grand tours. Will he be able to survive the queen of all gravel races?
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"I'm not expecting a big result for myself, but you never know."
Speaking ahead of the race, De Gendt admitted that the length of the race makes it a hard nut to crack.
“Yeah well I hope I at least can finish it,” De Gendt said in a pre-race press conference.
“That would be already a nice victory for myself. The longest race I [did] on the road was 300 kilometres in Milan-Sanremo, and it was only six hours, 30 or something. [Unbound] will be next level, and it's more of a race against myself instead of a race against others.
"I'm not expecting a big result for myself, but you never know. I never raced in something this long.”
Earlier this season, De Gendt finished 5th in the general classification of the four-stage Sahara Gravel in Morocco. He then placed 10th at The Hills gravel race and 3rd on stage 1 of the Ibereolic Gravel Tierra de Campos race.
De Gendt planned to race the Traka 200 as a part of his preparation for Unbound, but he got sick. After recovering, he did a small training camp in the mountains of France.
“Everybody has faults during the season, but I hope it will still be enough to just have a good time on Saturday and try to be somewhere in a good position,” he said. “But I don't think it will be near the top 10 or top 20.”
A new challenge
Now racing for the Classified x Rose team, De Gendt will have teammates in the race. While Unbound and gravel has seen road tactics appear – notably from Pas Racing last year – team tactics can still be hard to pull off given how many variables there are at Unbound.
De Gendt said he may be able to help his teammates stay out of the wind, but that tactics will only work for the first half of the race.
“As far as tactics go, once you get over halfway, then it's more the legs that will talk. And then as long as you can save some energy in the first five, six hours, and I can help them with that, then maybe they have a bigger chance to have a good result in the end.
“It's not like in road racing, where you have somebody closing the gaps. In a race like this, nine to 10 hours, you don't have the team to close gaps the whole day, so it will be some kind of team tactic in the first three, four hours, but then after that, it's just everybody for themselves.”
The Belgian added that it was the prestige as well as the adventure that drew him to Unbound and gravel in general after retiring from his career as a road racer.
“In Belgium, it's a really big race,” De Gendt said of Unbound.
“We make documentaries about Unbound. It seemed like something fun to do, but now that I'm here, it just seems very hard. Especially with the rain, it will be a special kind of day on Saturday, so I hope it dries up a little bit.
“After all these years on the roads, it was time for something new. And gravel takes you on roads that you've never been before. I do climbs from a different side, and it's the more adventurous part of gravel that drew me to this race.”
