Larry Warbasse (AG2R Citroën) said he is as prepared as he can be to tackle Unbound Gravel 200 as the first gravel race in his 12-year pro road racing career. He also admitted that maybe he was a little crazy to hop on a flight just days after completing the Giro d’Italia to compete at Unbound, one of the hardest gravel races on the planet, 8,500km away in Kansas.
It seemed that making it to Rome in this year’s gruelling Giro wasn’t enough of a challenge for the 32-year-old Michigan native. He had helped teammate Aurélien Paret-Peintre to a victory on stage 4 and was in the queen stage breakaway on the final weekend. With a fifth Giro now under his belt, Warbasse said he was “fit but fatigued” as Unbound Gravel loomed just four days away.
“It is probably one of the best ways you could prepare. It’d be nice to have a few more recovery days in between, but I think I’ll come in good form,” Warbasse told Cyclingnews about a quick transition from the Giro to Unbound. “I was hoping to fly tomorrow, but it was kind of last minute and the flights were booked, so I fly Thursday.
“It was something that BMC and the team proposed, and I was like, OK, I guess it should be fine. I’ll be fit, but I might be a little bit fatigued. It’ll be interesting. It’ll be my first gravel race, so it’ll be an experience that’s for sure.”
Riding a three-week Grand Tour could be considered one of the best ways to prepare for an off-road endurance test like Unbound Gravel, an “unintentional training camp” as he called it. However, that is not why he competed at the Giro, which was the ninth Grand Tour of his career.
Just completing this year’s epic Giro was a tall task, as the peloton faced repeated days of cold rain, injuries and illnesses that accounted for 51 riders abandoning the race over the 21 racing days. AG2R Citroën lost Paul Lapeira to illness during stage 4, Andrea Vendrame to COVID-19 before stage 11 and Mikaël Chérel to stomach issues during stage 12.
“I was hoping to get a stage win. I didn’t come away with one. But yeah, it was a good race for the team. We had a stage win, and we were really active in all the breakaways so it was really nice. I was glad that on the queen stage, the last big mountain stage, I was able to get out there and have a good ride,” Warbasse said about his high-altitude ride to Tre Cime di Lavaredo, where he finished 22nd.
“I was hoping to have a little bit better legs in the final but I was in the breakaway from…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…