Despite the UCI running a gravel world championships each year, the star event in the gravel racing calendar remains the Unbound 200 race.
Although there are Unbound Gravel race lengths from 25 miles up to 350 miles, it’s the 200-mile long Unbound Gravel 200 is the highlight event and attracts the elite riders.
The event takes place in the Flint Hills of Kansas, starting in Emporia, with the 2025 race day being Saturday 31 May.
Last year, the men’s race was won from a two-up sprint by Lachlan Morton of the EF Education Pro Cycling team in just over 9 hours. Morton isn’t riding Unbound 200 this year, pitching for victory instead in the 350-mile, unsupported Unbound XL.
But the winner of the 2024 women’s Unbound 200, Rosa Klöser will be defending her title. On the back of her 2024 win, she’s since become a pro road cyclist, riding for Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto.
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2025 Unbound Gravel 200 contenders
As the flagship gravel race, Unbound attracts a diverse field of elite athletes from a range of disciplines.
Although it’s natural territory for US-based pro gravel racers, they compete with European gravel riders and road and MTB pros.
50 of the world’s top gravel riders are competing in the Life Time Grand Prix series of six US gravel races, with a prize pot for the series of $380,000. But alongside the gravel pros, Unbound 200 attracts a field of former and current WorldTour pros, whose names will be familiar to followers of road racing.
Unbound 200 is the second race in the Life Time Grand Prix and after the first, the Sea Otter Classic, Sofia Gomez Villafane is at the top of the leaderboard for women and Keegan Swenson is for men.
Swenson won Unbound in 2023. They’re both contenders for the 2025 Unbound title, although Gomez Villafane came second to Haley Batten, who is not part of the Life Time Grand Prix Series, at Sea Otter.
In Europe, the Traka 360 (in km, not miles) women’s race at the start of May was won by Karolina Migon and the men’s by Tobias Kongstad, who will both be lining up in Emporia.
Klöser isn’t the only pro or former pro road racer on the start list this year, with perennial breakaway specialist Thomas de Gendt slated for a start in the men’s race. Chad Haga is another former Grand Tour rider now dedicating his time to gravel racing, coming second at last year’s Unbound.
Although one of the top riders normally triumphs, the course can throw a mechanical or a puncture at anyone. Klöser suffered a puncture at the 2024 race, but still came back to win a nine-up sprint to the line. Others have found themselves put out of contention by an ill-timed flat.
2025 Unbound Gravel 200 course
This year’s Unbound 200 course covers 202.4 miles (325.7km) with 10,122 feet (3,085m) of elevation gain.
Heading north from Emporia, Kansas, into the Flint Hills, the route is near-identical to that taken in 2024, although the stated distance is slightly shorter and includes less climbing than the 202.9 mile / 10,750 ft route in 2024.
The race route is unmarked, with 93 per cent on unpaved roads and just 14.6 miles on tarmac. The first 33 miles or so offer an undulating ascent from Emporia at 1,142 ft elevation to 1,588 feet.
That’s followed by a technical section of around 4 miles with steep climbs and descents that starts at mile 40, where a mechanical can make it difficult to get back to the front group and put even an elite rider out of contention.
At 69 miles, the race reaches its lowest elevation, 1032ft at Mill Creek, just before the town of Alma, the site of the first checkpoint at mile 70 and close to the race’s furthest north point.
From there, the course climbs to 1,451 ft at 88.6 miles, then drops to 1,170ft at 98.5 miles.
The second half of the course undulates between 1,228 ft and 1,476 ft before dropping down into Emporia and includes the second checkpoint at Council Grove at mile 148. It’s prone to headwinds when the route passes Lake Kahola, which can promote attacks and split a bunched field over the last 29 miles.
In addition to the two checkpoints, there are water collection points at mile 40 and mile 112. While riders can station a support crew with spares at the two checkpoints, they ride unsupported over the rest of the course, so they must carry enough food, water and supplies to fix mechanicals and flats.
No team cars to swap bikes or hand up a sticky bottle here.
This year, the bulk of the racing will be streamed live on YouTube by its sponsor, Life Time.
