On November 21, former Unbound Gravel 200 champion Ivar Slik (Wilier Triestina), allowed himself a moment to acknowledge a six-month anniversary. The date was exactly half a year since his 2024 season ended abruptly on a training ride in the US. He was 11 days away from competing for a fourth time in Emporia, Kansas at Unbound 200, but instead, ended up in a hospital with a long road to recovery.
"It took a really long time and the last weeks I can say it's back to normal," the multi-discipline Dutch racer told Cyclingnews. "I am super motivated for next year and I am full of ambition. I want to at least equal my 2022 season and the prospects are good. This year was a big setback but I have been working very hard since then and I am looking forward to next year with great confidence."
This past Thursday also marked the day thousands of elite and amateur riders around the world received lottery confirmations for Unbound entries from event owner/producer Life Time. Since Slik was not able to ride this year, he said he will be there May 31, 2025 on the start line.
"Unbound is the ultimate gravel race of the year. Now, the World Championships are also there, but Unbound, it's higher than the Worlds," assessed Slik, having competed for the Netherlands twice at the UCI Gravel World Championships, but missed the 2024 edition due to the May 21 crash.
The 31-year-old made history in 2022 as the first non-US rider to win the epic off-road race. He transitioned in 2021 from a 10-year pro road career and beach racing with some mountain bike and gravel racing, finishing 14th in his inaugural appearance in Kansas for the 200-mile assault in the Flint Hills.
Covered in mud the next year, he won a sprint against defending champion Ian Boswell, Keegan Swenson and Laurens ten Dam to claim just the second gravel race victory of his career. His first victory came in Spain at The Traka 200 earlier in May. He took second at Gravel Locos in Texas leading to his dash in Kansas. He added second place later in the season in a muddy edition of Gravel One Fifty in the Netherlands, which qualified him for his first UCI Gravel World Championships.
The next year he kept his momentum going with a win at Gravelicious in Arkansas, second at The Rift, third at Gravel Locos and fifth at The Traka 200. He finished Unbound 200, but had several mechanical issues in the thick mud and finished 36th.
"I love the adventurous nature of gravel racing but I am also performance-oriented. Unbound and the UCI series will be my main goals for 2025," he told Cyclingnews about his return to competition in the new year.
"My personal favourite races - Gravel Locos, Traka and The Rift - I will be at the starts. Also the Migration Gravel Race in Kenya and the Saga Gravel Race in Chile are high on my list, this seems to me a great adventure."
He'll ride a fourth season for his Wilier Triestina sponsors and will pin on a race number for the first time since May at beach races in Europe. In 2019 he was the European Beach racing champion and won the title in 2020.
"Now half a year later, I am happy to say that I have been back on the bike for two months and I can do full training weeks again without limitations. In December, I will return to competition and I will ride beach races this winter in preparation for the gravel season of 2025.
Recalling the disaster
Slik said he 'put everything' into his training and preparations for Unbound Gravel 200 this past year. And it was perhaps a tribute to his great physical condition that he could survive the injuries that ended his 2024 season before that race.
Niki Terpstra, Jasper Ockeloen and Thijs Zonneveld, close friends and fellow gravel racers, were with him at Gravel Locos and then travelled to Arkansas by car "to put the finishing touches on our shape and finally in Kansas for the race. However disaster struck". On May 21, a head-on collision with a truck on a rural dirt road "in the middle of nowhere" in Arkansas.
He was breathing after being struck but was unconscious. His friends put him in the back of the same truck, as the driver had stopped, and was driven to a paved road to meet first responders. A fireman called for a trauma helicopter to transport him to the hospital. Slik confirmed with Cyclingnews that he suffered a concussion, a broken nose, a crack in his skull, a damaged knee and several other wounds. His first night in the Fayetteville hospital he said he had two minor brain hemorrhages.
"I had big trouble talking about the accident, and that's why I also went to psychologists to help me talk about it. The strange thing is that I suffered memory loss, about the crash and the 10 days that followed. After 10 days I thought I crashed with just a concussion. Why is everyone so worried?"
He said his friends visited him every day in the hospital and he was able to leave after 10 days. He expressed sincere thanks for the support of his Dutch friends, the driver of the truck for helping and the medical staff.
"My father had travelled to America and together we stayed in an Airbnb until the return flight on Monday, June 4. I had surgery on my nose and could walk short distances again, but not without pain because of my knee.
"In the time that followed, I had about five epileptic attacks, which is a result of the brain haemorrhage. Bright light was annoying but fortunately, I did not suffer from headaches. I am being treated by a neurologist in a Dutch hospital, and he assured me that I will recover completely, which is what the doctors said in America too. This gave me a lot of reassurance."
He got back on his bike six weeks after the accident but experienced considerable knee pain. An Orthopedic specialist was found and said his meniscus "had folded backwards and doubled". He was off the bike again for surgery.
"I had to walk with crutches for six weeks and was not allowed to put any weight on my knee. However, my knee swelled up even more in the days after the operation and then it turned out that I got a bacterial infection after the operation. Because of this, I had to go under the knife again followed by six weeks of antibiotics, of which two were through an IV in the hospital.
"An intense rehabilitation followed and I went to the physiotherapist four times a week. I basically had to learn to walk again and it was painful to see the season go on without me. Fortunately, I made steady progress although it took time.
"This year was a little bit of a lost year, but I tried to take the lessons learned with me. I learned a lot about myself. I know now that I love cycling."
