Words by Becca Book, Images by @marathonfoto

On the last Friday of May, an odd coalition of 192 cyclists packed Emporia’s main street for the 355 mile Unbound XL with a range of equipment ranging from ultra-light to ultra-prepared. The camera crew hovering in a helicopter above us was in stark contrast to other bikepacking races I have done, which by and large start on remote trails without much fanfare. After months of preparation, it was a relief to hear the starting gun fire. I had obsessively prepared for this event for months, and finally I could stop fretting about my packing list and training. There was nothing to do now but high five the spectators lining the road and pedal!

It was difficult to hold a steady pace as we headed out of town. No doubt there was a strong pack at the front who were traveling at an endurance pace, but my heart pounded in my chest as I prepared to test my gear and training. We headed out of town and quickly hit dirt. Within a few hours the lead pack pulled ahead, enveloped in a cloud of dust. I settled in at a more comfortable pace with eclectic little pod including Jan Heine on a steel canti bike, Jesse from Jersey with a bleached mohawk and neon pink kit, Nico on a single speed, and a mechanic who talked about the terrible mechanical damage mud at Unbound does for at least an hour. The first resupply stop was unassuming gas station at mile 86. The bustling interior drew a sharp contrast to the quiet Kansas plains, with at least six photographers buzzing around the racers.

As we passed the hundred mile mark, the sky grew dark. I was feeling strong and my Waheela C with 2” tires allowed me to fly confidently down a series of minimum maintenance roads, eventually pulling away from our little peloton. Soon it was just me and Marcelo from Chile facing the dark plains. We stopped at the resupply in Alma for Coca Cola and Haribo. The mood was distinctly different, with several folks sprawled out in the parking lot looking concerned about the many dark miles ahead. The night erased any landmarks except for the dips of small creek crossings and dogs barking with varying degrees of ferocity. As I shifted down to climb out of yet another streambed, my chain over shot the cassette, slingshotting into the wheel and breaking a spoke. With little to fix it besides a wing and a prayer, I carried on. Around 3am Marcelo and I caught up with Ivy. The three of us carried on past yet another set of barking farm dogs, doing a sad impression of a sprint as one of them wriggled free from its fence and nipped at our heels until the end of the property. By the time light was peaking over the horizon, one of my lights was fully dead and Marcelo and I were taking pulls, with our lights in the lowest setting while someone else was in front to squeeze out a few more minutes of light from our batteries. 

The mysterious night dissolved into a rather mundane morning as I pulled into Council Grove (mile 219) at 6 am. I rushed around the gas station trying to top off water and snacks for the next seventy miles of my adventure, while locals stopped by to pick up a coffee and head about their usual business. The cashier had already seen dozens of haggard faces come through and barely looked at me twice as I fumbled with my dusty wallet and tried to remember usual niceties. Good company seemed less essential in the pale sunlight and our little squad broke up. I was feeling good – amazing considering the sleepless night and 250 miles under my belt. The weather seemed custom tailored to my PNW training: a protective foggy coating hid the sun, and the light mist that would have been refreshing if I hadn’t already heard so many horror stories about the mud south of Emporia. The little rolling hills were blanketed in a bright spring green which carried on as far as I could see in any direction.

When my wheels stopped rolling, it barely even registered what happened. The road in front of me looked smooth and dry, but just ahead of me I saw the little dot I had been chasing off their bike as well. We had hit mud, and within seconds inches of it had caked onto my wheels so thick they couldn’t even roll forward. I scraped it off meticulously with a brush I had packed for this exact moment, but my ample tire clearance clogged up just as fast the second time. After several minutes of dragging my bike behind me my race-addled brain realized that I should be walking in the grass. This was an imperfect solution, because every hundred feet or so the drainage ditch on the side of the road merged with a natural stream from the neighboring field, forcing me back into the mud. 

At some point Marcelo trudged past me shouting the dubious advice ‘You just have to keep moving!’. I ended up with two other men who were equally as confused as I was about how, exactly, to keep moving. We veered a few feet away from the road before we realized we were on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence along with a farmer’s pit bull. We helped each other lift our bikes, now heavy with a thick coating of mud, over the fence. Just a few feet ahead was the crest of the hill… and dry road! I tried in vain to clean my bike, focusing on the space between my frame and my wobbly wheel, which was quickly shrinking due to the broken spoke. 

Despite my best efforts mud still clung to my chain and weighted down my bike, and being back in the saddle was not the panacea I had hoped for. I called my partner, Brandon, next to tears, with the thoughtful insight into race dynamics ‘This is REALLY HARD!!’. The support that trickled in over the phone over the next few hours revived me in a way I couldn’t have even anticipated. Brandon had been up since 4 AM Seattle time watching my dot progress on trackleaders and messaging with friends. He shared that I was in an apparent second. Svenja Betz was off the front on a record setting tear. Cynthia Carson had pulled out, treating a potential concussion with well deserved caution, which was rewarded with a speedy recovery. Ivy Pedersen was ahead of me but appeared to be off course, following an outdated course file. Meaghan Owens and Kait Boyle were just behind me, working together to close down the gap while I had a cry on the side of the road. 

I had a goal to work towards now: A podium spot. But more than that our call helped me shift my perspective from my muddy bike and aching back to the whole community cheering me on. As the race heated up and the day’s temperature soared way past my comfort zone, cheers came in from my family in Atlanta, friends from Emporia to Seattle to Chicago, and strangers who spent the whole day waiting along shout a few words of encouragement to increasingly ragged XL riders as they passed by. After a couple of ibuprofen and handfuls of muddy Haribo, my tears turn from sobs of self pity to tears of joy for all the support I was getting. I sunk into my aerobars and hammered out the final stretch. Thirty miles from Emporia, we rejoined the daytrippers – just as the elite women raced past me into town! This was the first year the elite women were granted their own start at Unbound, and the front row seats to a history-making race distracted me from my own aches and pains for several miles. I wasn’t going to let myself stop until I was across the finish line, and there was no way to get there but gummy bears and pedal strokes. Messages of support were popping up on my computer every couple of minutes, but I was getting a different type of message from my bike: ‘Derailleur battery critical!’ and a squishy rear tire to match the wheel’s wobbles.

Then, it was all done. I was standing, dazed, in the middle of Emporia’s Commercial street. There were photographers, families enjoying the fair-like atmosphere, and kids eating popsicles, and not a trace of the mud and prairie I had stared at for 26 hours and 37 minutes (well, except for smeared across my body and bike). All of the training and fiddling with the setup on my Waheela had paid off, and I managed a third place finish. Kait followed quickly behind just 2 minutes and 48 seconds behind me, finishing with a smile even after riding over one thousand miles to the start line. Meaghan was just 13 minutes behind her. Ivy’s final race time put her in second, just 2 minutes and 15 seconds ahead of me. It was a shockingly close finish for a 354.5 mile course. It invigorated even my leaden legs to find such fierce competition in the women’s field in an ultra endurance event. My friends Marley and Makenna shepherded me into the shade and took my bike to get washed. One of the owners of a taco stand saw me sitting on the pavement and brought me an agua fresca. Two taco bowls later, the saddle sores and sore legs seemed irrelevant, and I was left feeling awe and gratitude for the supportive community that cycling has helped me find.