‘I rode with one eye for an hour and a half’ – Could I survive the elite Unbound Gravel 200 as an indoor cyclist?

At 6:30am on Saturday, May 30, Unbound Gravel erupted into chaos. The peloton had just entered the first mud section of the race, and hundreds of riders came to a standstill. They grabbed their paint sticks and started whacking away at the mud, attempting to clear as much debris as possible. Most bikes were completely clogged, their wheels unable to turn, and so riders began putting them on their backs and running.

I joined my fellow racers in jogging to the top of the hill with a mud-clogged bike, and it took us all a few minutes to get going again. This was ‘Mudbound’ 2026, and I was in survival mode.