Unbound over the years: Ted King’s Take
Unbound, the world’s most prestigious gravel race, is a little over a week away. Unbound isn’t just one of the biggest gravel races, it’s also one of the oldest ones. The race across the Flint Hills of Kansas has been at the forefront of how gravel racing has exploded in popularity. Just ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to see European professionals line up for a 200-mile gravel race. This year, even the 350-mile XL will see top-level riders at the start: Lachlan Morton, who won the 200-mile race last year, will be one of many pros to head into the wilds of the night-time Flint Hills, unsupported. So will be Ted King, who has been racing Unbound longer than most—and won it twice. We asked him about his perspective of how the race has developed over the years.
This is my tenth year of Unbound… when you round up, that is. My first was 2016, and I’ve been back every year since then, with the exception of 2020, when there was no race due to Covid, and 2022, when my son had a due date right around race day. I have six 200s under my belt, and I rode 200 miles of an XL once, but called it a day after walking a half marathon through the mud.
My race-winning bike from 2016 (above) was just brought to the Gravel Hall of Fame. That was what I consider the true original gravel rig, a Cannondale Slate. I had 38 mm tires on an indestructible aluminum frame. A one-by SRAM drivetrain, 46-tooth front chainring and a 10-44 cassette. It also has a Lefty Oliver fork with 1 inch of travel. A bike well ahead of its time!
Fast forward to the present, and I’ll be on the 2025 Cannondale Topstone. It’s the successor to the Slate. There’s a bit of rear suspension in its Kingpin technology. I oped for a rigid fork courtesy of the 48 mm Rene Herse tires I’m running this year. The tires are prototypes that I can’t talk about yet. I’m still on a one-by drivetrain, but the gearing has morphed from mechanical to electric, and the expanse of gears has grown. I’ll have a custom half-frame bag from Moosepacks that will help carry all the hydration needed for the huge distances between resupply stops. I’ve also been testing the Corkscrew Climbs as a fast-rolling 44 mm tire. I feel confident in that as an option if the weather turns gross. The minimally maintained roads, MMR, just turn to a quagmire of peanut butter (below) when it rains, so a narrower tire is about the only thing I might look to change come closer to race day.
Unbound is always going to be hard. It was hard the first year, and it’s hard every year for everybody. Like Greg Lemond famously quipped, “It doesn’t get easier; you just go faster.” It’s a bit of the more-more-more mentality. More people, more professionals, more competition have raised the overall level. Whereas in my first year, I went on a race-winning 100-mile breakaway, now we see as many as a dozen or so riders sprinting for the line. Frankly, it’s just become more of a scene. The expo is that much bigger, companies debut products at Unbound, it’s a reunion in many ways. It’s a lot of fun!
The XL is seeing a massive increase in the level of competition, just like the 200… and the 100 for that matter. It’s more of a race of attrition, whereas the 200 still sees a bit of a pack mentality. For this year’s XL, it’s hard not to keep my eyes on Lachlan. I mean, the dude rode the equivalent of an XL every day for a month straight, to set the round-Australia record, for gosh sakes! He’s such a weapon that he’s a favorite anywhere he lines up. Laurens ten Dam is always a threat in long races, so he’s someone to watch, too. But frankly you need to watch the weather as much as anything, since that’s such a piece of the puzzle.
Photo credits: Ansel Dickey (Photo 1), Linda Guerrette (Photos 2, 3), Andy Chasteen (Photo 4)
