Unbound: Chapeau To Those Who Work and Ride
The “Kona” of gravel cycling is Unbound Gravel, née Dirty Kanza. The featured race is 200 miles long, and did you notice how well our industry 9-to-5ers did? The winner of the race, Ian Boswell (on the far right below, in the leading pack), was also the first finisher among those tethered to Honest Work. Boswell is the athlete liaison for Wahoo Fitness.
Boswell is, of course, a recent WorldTour rider, and he headlines the Wahoo Frontiers gravel racing team. (Wahoo, by the way, fared well in the men’s Unbound Gravel field with Peter Stetina 3rd and former winner Colin Strickland 5th. Back to industry…)
Jeremiah Bishop finished 8th and while not strictly employed by Canyon does a lot of off-the-bike work for that brand and others. He is also familiar to Slowtwitchers as a frequent Zwift guest leader and notable for his feats of endurance on wheels. (For those interested in this cycling avocation, he’s written to us about becoming a graveler.)
In 30th was Ben Delaney, Membership Director at Outside Cycling and probably the highest-finishing full-time clock puncher in the race. I wrote last week about ENVE and ABG (makers of Quintana Roo, OBED, Litespeed), whose principals make what they ride, and turn the pedals of what they ride in anger. ENVE’s Jake Pantone (he’s the face of ENVE to those of us who cover this brand) finished inside the top-50 overall and Ike Pantone is an engineer there and finished almost on the heels of his brother.
Nick Legan is Shimano’s road brand manager, and he finished inside the top-100. Jesse Bartholomew has been a familiar face at Saris, Trek and SRAM, is now at Coaster Cycles, and finished in the top third of the field in the featured 200-mile race. Alison Tetrick has her hands full with many industry initiatives but nonetheless finished 11th in the women’s field.
ABG’s owner and president, Peter Hurley, all 64 years of him, finished 9th overall out of 251 in the 50-miler (after just racing IM Chattanooga 70.3). In charge of sales at ABG is Chris Brown, who finished 6th out of 649 in the 100-miler.
Triathletes tend to sneak into the top-10 at the featured 200-mile event at Unbound Gravel, notably our own Jordan Rapp, 6th overall a few years ago. This year Angela Naeth was 6th in the women’s field, and Team EMJ powerhouse rider Reid Foster was 9th in the men’s race. (Not bad for an age grouper!)
I’m sure I’m missing many more industry folks who raced (and triathletes as well) and I apologize in advance for that. Perhaps there will be mentions of them in the Facebook comments below, or in our Reader Forum discussion thread on Unbound Gravel. Here are the full results of Unbound Gravel.
[PHOTO: Andy Chastain]
