Mudbound 2026

Matt Darring
Jul 6
6 min read

by special guest: Matt Darring

2,328 miles driven
362 miles biked
??? energy gels, bars, and gummies consumed
11 energy drink bidons consumed
6 tanks of gas burned
6 gas station snack runs
3 taco truck visits
4 USWE hydration packs
2 Gravel City Roasters Coffee Shop visits
2 Waffle House visits
2 new tires
1 beer truck visit
1 campsite
1 Cafe 627 visit
1 retaped rim
1 McDonalds visit
1 sushi truck visit
1 broken tent
1 Jersey Mikes visit
1 Chipotle visit
1 AirBnb

Above is the Unbound 2026 100 mile course by the numbers for five folks from Virginia.

However, numbers only tell part of the story. Another dimension is which of those numbers are planned and which are not planned. The miles driven, the miles biked, the tanks of gas, the campsite were all scoped out and planned well ahead of time. The spectre of driving halfway across the 3rd largest country in the world to participate in the biggest gravel bike race in the world required planning. Luckily, we had 4 drivers in our party of 5, which meant that each of us would roughly have to drive about 4 hours each way. Sam found a campsite for us and booked it. It was a forty minute drive outside of Emporia, but it was quiet and nice. Grams of carbs were calculated, as well as caloric burn. The weather in Kansas is unpredictable in late spring, so protecting against bonking, dehydration, and sunburn was a planning requirement.

The best laid schemes of mice and men have a way of unraveling when faced with the harsh cruelty of reality.

This is one of the unique aspects of cycling as a sport versus just about any other. Cycling happens out in the wild woods, the open roads, and the gravel access paths, not on manicured grass fields or covered courts. It’s wild, it’s messy, and in many cases it tests every facet of your mental and physical being, not to mention your equipment. If the drizzle turns to a shower, then the baseball game is rained out. If lightning strikes, then the football stadium is evacuated and the game delayed or canceled. This isn’t the case for cycling. In this sport when the conditions get bad it becomes “type 2 fun”, and you’re told to make the best of it and try not to die, if at all possible.

Cycling demands you to react in real time to situations that may or may not be foreseeable.

These reactions show up in the numbers above. The reason for the unknown energy snacks? Some were lost along the way. Bounced out of bags that would not zip any more due to mud or rattled out of hands shaken by washboard and made cold and slippery by hail. Plan. Arrive. Assess. React. Repeat. The four USWE hydration packs might seem odd since we had 3 riders, but we left Virginia with 3 packs. A fourth was bought on Friday to get just the right size for the potential heat and conditions. Plan. Arrive. Assess. React. Repeat. The 2 new tires were a reaction to the recon ride on Friday which had Nathan’s bike clogging with mud meters into the first mud section. A panicked trip to the Continental tent and a hurried parking lot install followed. Plan. Arrive. Assess. React. Repeat. The retaped rim? During that same recon ride David’s back wheel would not hold air. A panicked trip to the Silca tent for sealant and then to the Schwalbe tent for an install followed. Plan. Arrive. Assess. React. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

After a wonderful dinner and a decent night of sleep we got up on Saturday and headed out.

The night had been interrupted by a pretty good storm that tested the seams of our tent. We found out that Pete Stetina, a development coach for the 3 Cats Racing Team who was competing in the Unbound XL 350 mile race, had to drop out overnight due to a crash on a corner in the storm. From the lead group to the hospital for stitches in his knee in the blink of an eye, or more accurately in a flash of lightning. During the pre-race meeting the organizers told the riders not to underestimate the Flint Hills or the weather. Duly noted. We got to the line up for the 100 mile start at our planned time, but that was actually a little late because the field is so massive, so our riders were lined up pretty far back.

We all hoped that the overnight storm had taken the energy out of the air and that things would dry out.

They did not. Our riders were pelted with multiple rounds of thunderstorms. The result was cold and wet bodies riding through increasingly muddy conditions. As one person put it, the weather was bipolar. These dynamic conditions forced our riders to make decisions repeatedly. Plan. Ride. Assess. React. Repeat. Over and over again for 106 miles of constantly changing conditions. Cloudy and windy. Rain and showers. Hail and lightning. Sun and headwinds. Mud and muck. Sometimes the mud flew up in their eyes. Sometimes the mud clogged up their wheels and drivetrain. Barbed wire would reach out and grab them. Two mile long trains would cross just in front of their path. For all of this, the riders had only 4 options: Ride. Assess. React. Repeat.

One variable that did not waiver was Nathan being with his teammate Sam.

It was apparent on Friday that Nathan’s number one goal was for Sam to finish. If that meant that he would get a PR and finish high in the rankings, then great. Or if that meant that the two of them would be rolling in late at night to only a few people looking on, then that was great, too. In a day full of variables and unpredictable situations, Nathan was constant, steadfast, and unwavering. Cycling is an individual sport not a team sport, except when in moments like this it is exceptionally and beautifully and emphatically a team sport.

David finished his ride at 2:30 PM, about 7 hours in the saddle - if you count walking, scraping mud, and rechaining the chain, who knows how many times as ‘in the saddle.’

Nathan and Sam finished hand in hand at 4:45 PM. 9 hours and change on course, and they were welcomed by the helicopter following the Women’s Elite 200 race. The lead pack of that race even cheered THEM on. In a field where 208 of the people that lined up at 7:30 AM didn’t make the full ride home, surviving is a testament as much as time. In the paraphrased words of Russell Finsterwald - to ride even one mile of the course today was an accomplishment.

Back on Commercial Street in Emporia bikes and bodies were washed. 1 trip to the taco truck, turned into 2, turned into 3. Oooooo…is that a sushi food truck? Bill, want a beer? Yes. What kind? I don’t care, whatever they have. The riders’ 1,000 foot stares started to reign in and come back to the bright eyes we’ve come to know and love.

We left Emporia a little reluctantly.

We had to get back to our tent and pack up a bit. Daylight was fading. We got back to our tent and found that it had not weathered the storms as well as our riders and support. It got a B on the overnight storm test. During the day it got expelled from school. Poles snapped. Awnings caved in. But like a good little trooper it kept our gear mostly dry and sheltered. Turns out our tent was a team player, too. You know what it’s time for: Plan. Arrive. Assess. React. Repeat. Hop on the phone and look for an AirBnb. We found one that would fit us. It was a little odd, but so were we at this point. An elevator to a basement in a house outfitted as an in-law suite for in-laws who no longer needed it. Our host, Brent, was new to this hosting thing. We were new to being gravel bike race campsite refugees. We showered, laughed, ate, and slept like logs. A little too well in fact, starting our trek back about 90 minutes later than planned.

We traveled back across the Mississippi River, back across the central time zone, back across the Appalachians, back through endless interstate highway construction, back through some hair raising West Virginia back rounds, back to the Old Dominion. I will not soon forget this trip, nor do I want to.