Mass starts in gravel races can quickly mean the women pro riders become separated and scattered through a predominantly men’s field of pros and eager amateurs, with the races potentially affected or ruined by the machinations of an entirely different category.
Last year, Unbound Gravel 200 introduced a separate start time for the elite women, but it didn’t keep the fields split for long, particularly with the bottleneck of the mud-field chaos just 11 miles in. To try and make a difference this year, the gaps have been extended between pro men and pro women, as well as pro women and the general field of the 200-mile race.
