At the finish of last year’s blazingly fast Unbound 200 race, the riders trickled across the line looking battle-worn and wrecked. Everyone was crusted in dust and sweat, some were bleeding, others simply stared a thousand miles into nothing. They crumbled to the ground, wherever there was an unoccupied spot, and stayed down.
Cycling Weekly found Olympic and Roubaix champion Greg van Avermaet sprawled onto a patch of grass, battered and depleted. In his debut Unbound race, the Belgian had experienced just how unforgiving gravel racing in the Flint Hills of Kansas can be. He’d finished in a respectable seventh place, but it had been a crucible of a day.
