In recent years, Unbound Gravel has slowly evolved from a niche event with a few hundred competitors to the bona fide biggest gravel race on earth, with thousands of competitors and a greater prestige than even the UCI Gravel World Championships.
One thing that has remained something of a constant, however, is riders' inclinations to try and use tech advancements to find free speed, save watts, and outwit their components.
As the competition has become fiercer, and greater in number, the tech has gotten wilder, and with no UCI commissaires patrolling the pits with their sock height rulers and their brake angle checkers, riders are free to innovate to their hearts' content.
And boy did they. We saw triathlon wheel fairings moulded onto gravel rims, makeshift hydration frame bags, and pro-only skinsuits with in-build hydration bladders. Notably, we also saw some comparatively rudimentary tech hacks, with both Niki Terpstra and Nathan Haas taping Co2 canisters to their frame using electrical tape, and eventual men's winner Lachlan Morton carrying a paint-stirrer in his back pocket to clear away any mud, should it clog up the tyres.
But there's plenty more where that came from... let's get stuck in.
We'll start with the World Champion's bike: Matej Mohorič's Merida Silex, complete with UCI- rainbow colour paint scheme.
The Slovenian's bike is adorned with an ode to his World Championship victory, and remembers Gino Mader, who sadly passed away after a crash during the 2023 Tour de Suisse.
A lot can be said with a simple image: According to Merida, the owl and the textbook on which it sits symbolize studying, wisdom and science; characteristics that Mohorič deems important. Meanwhile, the rake refers to his upbringing on a farm, reminding him to stay humble. Finally, the cane references the Slovenian's love for fashion.
Elsewhere, complete with mud-clearing stick in his pocket, Lachlan Morton - winner of the men's race - wore the mega-aero POC Procen Air helmet, and an all-new pro-only skinsuit from Rapha.
A photo from the development of that same skinsuit shows that a hydration pack can be mounted on his back, although going back to the previous photo, it looks as though he's actually got it stuffed down his front.
And here's Morton's bike shortly after the finish. He's slammed his saddle as far forward as it'll go. He's taped a spare tube and tyre lever to his top tube, and if you look closely, you'll also spot tyre plugs taped to his brake hoses. He only had two bottle cages, given the hydration skinsuit he wore, and we can make out a pair of Co2 canisters. He ran a 44mm Vittoria Mezcal rear tyre, paired with a 29x2.1in Terreno Dry up front, both set up using Muc-Off supplies.
Meanwhile, Tobias Kongstad looked to his base layer and narrow handlebars to find his aero gains.
Speaking of aero gains, we found the HED Jet 180 rear wheel - made for triathletes at Kona - in the Expo. Surely, we thought, nobody would run this in a gravel race? We were wrong...
Enter Chase Wark, whose Lauf Seigla was running the Jet 180 at the rear. However, rather than use the standard Jet 180, which has a narrow 21mm internal width, he asked HED to fit the 180mm fairing onto a HED Emporia wheel, and they duly obliged. That's not all, of course. He's also made his own hydration-bladder-holding aero frame bag, along with a similar aero hydration box up front. According to his Instagram, he also waxed his bottle cages, though he's yet to explain why.
On the subject of crazy wheels, we found Gulo Composites in the expo arena, and their GGA Aero gravel wheels, which weigh just 1323 grams a set.
Some of that weight saving comes courtesy of these stunning carbon fibre spokes. The same spokes are also found on the GGA SL wheels, which are staggeringly light at 1225 grams.
Back out on the road, and Amity Rockwell's bright yellow Colnago caught our eye - a full gallery of which is on the way, but we really liked this simple and contemporary chain keeper.
But the real thing that stood out on her bike was this new Dura bike computer from Coros. The blank section above the screen is a solar panel that, we're told, helps the computer to over 100 hours of battery life between charges.
It's pretty low profile, with an aero shape, and has a roller dial on the side, similar to all of Coros' smartwatches. The brand recently teased the computer via its Instagram, with the launch date of "June 2024" so there's not long to wait to find out more.
Still looking at a yellow Colnago, but this one belongs to Nathan Haas, complete with a Silca multi-tool and canister mounting system. We wonder if this rattled much...
His use of duct tape extended to packing a spare tube and tyre levers onto the seatpost, too.
This spare canister, ready to fire with an adaptor pre-threaded, had a slightly faster-access mount.
Paint stirrers make great mud-shedding sticks, so with the threat of rain high, and with it a decent chance of claggy mud, most riders packed one. Few had one bearing the Enve logo, though.
Until we saw Chase Wark's Lauf Seigla, we'd have said this was the wildest bike on course. It features super-narrow handlebars, a crazy-long stem, deep road wheels and mountain bike tyres.
Rumour has it, that Dylan Johnson spent the evening before the race shaving the small hairs off the 2.2in Continental RaceKing tyres. Like Wark, he ran the Lauf leaf-sprung forks too.
Somewhat amusingly, he ran his Shimano Ultegra 52/36 chainrings on a SRAM Red crankset.
Another Felt, and this one belonged to Paris-Roubaix winner, Niki Terpstra. We're huge fans of his classic shape drop bars.
Like Haas, Terpstra has stuck with a rudimentary mounting system.
He's also taped a tyre plug into the end of his bars.
One of the wildest paint jobs at the race has to be this Factor Ostro Gravel belonging to Rob Britton.
His purple and orange bike was fitted with Shimano GRX, with a 1x chainset and Classified two-speed rear hub.
He also had a pair of tyre plugs taped to his stem, for easy-access grab-and-stabbing should his tyres get cut on the flint rocks.
🤘. That is all.
Back in the expo, Wolftooth was keen to show off its colourful spares, including valves, top caps, spacers and bottle cage bolts.
This aero chainring drew our attention more, though.
Selle SMP was nearby too, showing off this $479.00 carbon-railed Evo saddle.
We also found Bivo, whose stainless steel bottles have garnered huge popularity lately for their durability, environmental friendliness, and impressive no-squeeze flow.
Italian brand Vision was also nearby showing off a 30mm deep version of the recently relaunched SC range.
Talking of Italian wheel brands, we spotted these Fulcrum-branded wheels on the bike of Mattia de Marchi, complete with strange sinusoidal profile
We also found Prologo showcasing its Pro Wing AGX bar, an aluminium gravel handlebar with in-built extensions for aero and comfort benefits.
We wonder how many of the many-thousand competitors used a Cushcore (or equivalent) tyre liner for the race. Despite the bad early-season press on the road, tyre liners are seen by many as a must-have item for off-road racing.
Talk about find your audience! The Naked Sports Innovations vests and hydration packs must have been a hit, as thousands used hydration packs to carry their water on what turned out to be a hot day in the Midwest.
Among them was Briton Dani Shrosbree, who carried two bottles and a hydration pack for a total of three litres. Perhaps just as importantly, though, she used Precision Hydration tabs, a brand which tests your salt loss through sweat and prescribes an appropriate tab to replace it effectively.
This is the first time we've seen Cane Creek's upside-down 'Invert' gravel fork in the flesh. The slight aero profiling is a potential revelation for suspension forks, especially in a sport so obsessed with aero gains as gravel is becoming.
We also spotted Cane Creek's eeSilk stem, which offers 20mm of bump absorption within a lockable mechanism.
DT Swiss was also showing off its new GRC 1100 aero gravel wheelset.
This wheel is 50mm deep, weighs a reported 1567g, and will set you back $2,999.
Also at the Cane Creek booth was this Zukas Do-All build by Nate Zukas, complete with Cane Creek eeWings titanium cranks anodised by Agave Finishworks, Campagnolo Super Record shifters/brakes, paired with an Ingrid RD1 rear mech, Garbaruk 10-52 Eagle cassette, and Industry Nine Solix SL AR40c wheels. Here at Cyclingnews, we appreciate the lime green and purple combo.
Speaking of green and purple, thank you Panaracer for launching the Cyclingnews-edition GravelKing tyres 😍.
At the IRC booth, the Boken tyres were mounted to this stunning yet understated, fully custom Sanitas Node Gravel.
The majority of Canadian brand T-Lab's bikes, along with its booth for the expo, went missing en route to Kansas from the brand's home in Québec. They have since been found at customs in Cincinnati, but there was understandable concern from the brand during the weekend.
This T-Lab X3 bike made it though, complete with its prototype Kenda tyres.
Among the many stalls in the expo arena, Chatanooga brand Obed was offering the chance to win its as-yet-unreleased road bike.
This wasn't new, nor could you win it, but we were pretty drawn to the paintwork on this Trek Checkpoint at the Shimano stand.
But for all of Shimano's efforts, SRAM stole the show, dropping a 13-speed version of its two-week-old Red AXS groupset onto select riders' bikes.
With an extra sprocket at the back, it used the same shifters from the Red AXS road groupset, but with a new rear derailleur.
- Read more: New SRAM Red spotted at Unbound Gravel
