Alex Wild is back. The elite gravel racer is fresh off the biggest gravel race in the world, the 2025 Unbound 200. This is one of the craziest races on the planet. We get into it today. The strategy, the chaos, the power numbers. Stick around till the end where Alex gives us his thoughts on who the real losers were this year in the second round of the Lifetime Grand Prix. This really is a rare opportunity to peak inside the race. Alex breaks down exactly how the race unfolded, like how did that early breakaway go, the bits we didn't get to see on the online coverage. We get to hear about the dynamics in the chase group and the decisions that either make your day or crack you completely. He's brutally honest about what went right, what went sideways, and what he would do differently. We also go deep on big picture stuff like gravel licenses, bike setups, feed zone safety, and whether the sport's getting a little too serious or keeping that wild edge, folks. He's back. It is Alex Wild. Alex Wild, the big show, Emporia, Kansas. The big How you feeling? Most overblown race in the world. 8:37. You guys were cooking. Oh man, that Did you ever think you'd go Did you ever think you'd go under the winner to go under nine? I did this year. I didn't think so many would. Um but I had a feeling just how competitive it's getting, how fast it's getting. I think this one really leans into I guess the carb revolution, right? People used to just try to survive this race and now like personally I was at I think 170 or 175 gram carb per hour and I talked to Cam the winner and he was at 194 for his 837 which is insane. You think the carb high carb is making that much difference? It just makes it possible. I mean you think about it just from energy in energy out his raw average was 295 watts. So he is going through roughly 1,50 calories per hour, which is just an uphill battle. Unless Cam is sitting there and that's like his fat max, which it's possible, but I don't think so. I think that's very unlikely high zone 2, which is going to be high contribution of carbohydrates. I don't think it is physically possible to do that without the high carb. It's absolutely wild. I tuned in just before the first feed station and I think you guys blew through the first feed station like way ahead of the fastest predicted schedule almost 40k an hour average up to that point. Yeah. So I have my buddy uh Daniel wrenching for me this year with cycle sport and he was like I didn't expect to see you so soon. It's like you're looking at you were set up. Yeah. No, I was he was right at the end of the feed zone. I was definitely getting a little nervous, but he was uh he was there. But yeah, we were way ahead of schedule and that was with some issues for me. Like I had my first crash and first flat before we even hit that aid station. So, but I mean that's also changed, right? The first time I did Unbound, people were like, "If I can get out of the feed zone within 30 seconds, that's great. Now most people aren't putting a foot down." I think Cam again the winner did double uh Museette. So he grabbed one Museette and another and then kind of just had his stash. Look, I I don't mind that so much. I think that's just being kind of in invent of playing within the rules. But some of the stuff in the feed zones just looks wild west Was it the Giants team who had someone riding alongside on a bike? I saw that in Joe Lavick's recap the first time. I didn't hear about it, nor did I see it, but he said in the second they had a rider or or a staff riding next to him, which to their defense is within the rules. So, it's not their job to regulate the rules. You know, if you don't want them to do that, make sure it's in the rules. Because in UCI racing, they're not even allowed to dump water on their riders. They're allowed to hand something to their rider, but they're not allowed to actually do the dump. there's regulations which side they need to be on. There's a lot of that. So, I feel like in this race, the feed zones are the wild west. And again, from from Joe Lavick's blog post, he thought that was kind of the biggest people were complaining about the crashes and he was kind of like crashes happen in a competitive race with a lot of money on the line, but in the feed zones is kind of where they can regulate better. Um, I don't have the answer, but I definitely feel like we're lucky that no one did go down because I mean, if you look at Sea Otter, which felt like a more regulated aid station, we had both Cole and Pacin go down hard in aid stations.
What's your take on safety overall? Because probably the enduring message coming out of Unbound this year for the first time was maybe more focused on safety concerns than results. Yeah. Um, personally didn't experience anything that I wouldn't call racing. Like my first crash, it was a double track. Someone hopped from the left to the right as they do and kind of just didn't hit my front wheel, but if I didn't move, they were going to. And then that kind of caused me to hit a mud patch and go down. And for me, that's kind of just racing, you know, like they don't want to be in the wind. They see a bunch of people on the right hand side. I've done it. Everyone does it. And it's kind of like that the the racing phrase. If you if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racer. So yeah, it's kind of just an outcome of we are racing and we are racing for a lot of prestige and a lot of money. you do that on the group ride, I'd probably give you a a yell or a talking to, but we're racing. Like, you got to watch your front wheel and incidents will happen. And I think in the heat of the moment, maybe you get all worked up, but at the end of the day, it's crashes happen. It's I think people fall into feeling like cycling is a safe sport when Yeah. No, for sure. You can't sterilize it. But I guess it's like I think some of the criticism I heard which I kind of felt like cuz I love the gravel scene. I really like what Unbound have done, what the whole Lifetime series have done. I think it's nothing but positive. But if someone's injured and they don't have access to an ambulance, like that feels like a lion we need to get better on. Absolutely. No, no, no. I'm definitely not arguing on that point. I think more just the the politics or kind of the the goal of erasing crashes from the race almost can't be a goal. Yeah. Like yes, you can make it safer, but the riders themselves competing for this top spot in a very prestigious race is always going to cause those situations to happen. But I agree. Um I mean I have the same concerns at a lot of races. I heard rumors that it took forever to get Howie help when he crashed at Brep Epic. You know, like these races are kind of just out there. But then I also feel for the race organizers, right? cuz I mean they're not they're not making the margins everyone thinks they're making and you know to get that kind of like where where is the requirement I guess in terms of but but I agree someone goes down hard and you can't sanitize it completely or we end up just doing criteriums because you say oh I can just park a ambulance on the start finish line and it services everyone like I'm going out to do badlands in September it's like 800 kilometers and I don't know how many participants say 500. Like how do you staff that with medical care? Like someone has a crash in the middle of the night on their own. Yeah. Like the trade-off, I guess, is we have less cool events, but safer events. I don't know if any of us want that either. Yeah. It's hard, right? Cuz it's it's very easy to complain. It's very hard to provide a solution. So, I feel like that's kind of I guess just how society is. We like we like to point out problems, but fixing them is a whole another thing. Uh, but I I agree. I think some of the most epic events are these these pointtooints, these big loops. Unbound is historically well, it is it is a loop, but let's be honest, every 10 miles you're like, I feel like I've been here before. You take a picture of Unbound, you've kind of got the the whole course laid out. But yeah, I mean, did who knows? like see maps. So, we could do something like that. But did your pre-ride recon of the route? I know it rained in the days up to the event. Did that change your mind on setup? Yeah, I was originally going to do 22 air tracks um on the new Diverge. Now I can uh say it out loud. So, every figured it out that I couldn't fit a 22 in the rear of a Krux. So, I like the eagle eyes. Um, but so originally I had 22 air tracks. It rained a little bit leading up to it, quite a bit, few inches. Um, and it was quite muddy. In hindsight, tracers weren't the call out there. I think the tread is just too thin for those rocks. I got a tread puncture. Um, yeah, I think the air tracks might have been better.
So, I do think the the margins are getting closer. And I think like like we saw at Sea Otter, the entire level is is coming up, but it's also changing how we race future races. Like, I don't know how many of the Grand Prix riders you follow, but it is the year of the drop bar mountain bike. Trekky's already training on his for Leadville. Matt's already built his up. Finy and Keegan already raced it last year. So, I think this is the year that the the top Grand Prix riders are all on drop bar mountain bikes for Leadville. How do you think that changes Leadville? We're going to see record breaking again in Leadville. I don't know about the record. Um, I think Keegan obviously can beat it. I think I'm looking more at the rest of the field. I don't think Keegan's going to be the only one that goes sub six this year if I had to guess. I think sub six is no longer going to guarantee you second place. I think I think five riders will go sub six. What do Ajouralia, Stage Slayer, Mads Person, and half the professional pelaton have in common? Well, they're all turning to Nomio, the natural performance enhancer proven to reduce lactate buildup during intense efforts. In the 2025 Jiralia, Person's form was undeniable. The Danish star surged to four stage victories. This was a major leap in form from his previous season. And a key part of this preparation and performance was Nomio. Developed by the same researchers who discovered the performance power of dietary nitrate. You know those beetroot shots that half the pelaton were using. Nomio is clinically proven to lower lactate levels, reduce oxidative stress, improve training adaptations, and deliver a noticeable boost from the very first time you take it. Riders are reporting bigger threshold power, fresher legs mid race, and quicker recovery. All from a formula made with just three natural ingredients: broccoli sprouts, lemon, and sugar. Whether you're racing at the front or you're smashing local segments, Nomio helps you get more out of every ride. Take it before key sessions or races for an immediate edge or take your training to the next level and get more out of your hard work. Go to drinknomo.com, that's nomio, and check out this gamechanging supplement. Details are in the episode show notes or description down below. And the dynamic and the power balance within the group is quite interesting because we're having legit exorld thorough riders coming across now. Like Tim the clerk was there this year. Like even you know Simon Pulo from like he's riding for tutor at the moment. like these guys have legit calendars and I know Moic raced last year but it felt like there was a little bit of tokenism in that cuz he was the gravel world champ and sponsors probably who knows what his preparation was like he could have been out there on a holiday and you know not too stressed people are going now and making this a priority event. How is that is it a us versus them mentality with the lifetime Grand Prix guys and the Europeans coming over? Not in not in my mind. I actually enjoy it. Like I think it's it's the cool thing for gravel for me. Like when I first got into racing, right, GVA was winning races and Olympic champion. And if he told me I'd be racing with him in South Africa and then again in Kansas in 2025, I'd be like, that's pretty cool. you know, like I think it it kind of brings everyone together and and I think that's what I enjoy most about gravel is the different backgrounds. Like we have GVA there, former Olympic road champion and then we have multiple winners of the Cape Epic. We had, you know, half the speed company racing team. We have Matt there, you know, we have Alexi who had a successful career on the road with BMC. We have people who, you know, gave up road careers to race gravel. Like I think Mad Madsword Smith is I think he was Danish champion on the road in 2021 and probably young enough to still be chasing a road career, but he chose gravel instead. So I think all those different backgrounds make it super interesting. But it's also why like on Divide Road there's such a wide range of experience. You know, you come from mountain biking, this feels like nothing. You come from road racing and your tires start moving underneath you, you're like, "What's happening?" Yeah. So, I think it's something to be aware of. But I I don't know. I really like the the community aspect of it and people coming from different countries, different backgrounds, different motivations. Like, I think it's so cool that we all get to this one start line, but we're not the same. You know, like my why is different from GVA's why is different from Keegan's why or how we train or or what we enjoy doing, but we all end up on that same start line.
You don't have a slow puncture. So those are quite useful in those cases and I tend to run them on gravel for that reason. But it's also yeah like you said nice if you are on a training ride you can use them to make sure the pressure is right when you reinflate. Yeah zip of that uh air pressure in their new wheels as well which I haven't played around with. So and the alternative is I know instead of CO2 a lot of people these days are running those electronic inflators and you can actually set those to the pressure you want. So, you know, if you know, say you're running 24 26, right? I would run it I'd set it to 26 just to make sure like if you flat the front, you just run a couple more PSI and then you can hit it with that and it hits it to the right pressure. Are they pretty fast to go up though or I kind of feel like almost a meme of trying to put a camp in bed trying to get it inflated with one of these things. I wouldn't say it's as fast as a CO2, but it's also I think the equivalent of four or five CO2s. So, for the size and weight, I'd say probably worth it and definitely something to for me to look into for future races. Yes, I am. Actually, I'm going to look into that as well for some of the longer stuff. Yeah, I'm down. As you were second puncture, solo TT at this point, is it all hope is lost of getting back into the race? You're just kind of trying to max effort from here to the finish time trial style. Yeah, it was definitely max effort from there to the finish. Um, maybe I'm blindly optimistic, but I mean in a race like Unbound, I feel like anything can happen. Maybe the group up front starts playing games again and there's negative racing or one of the good guys flats again and I catch them and now I have help to get back up. Who knows? I think just for me, don't give up was kind of just what was playing in my head and you never know what's possible. So, just kind of put my head down and like I said, regardless of the result in Grand Prix points, I think it was like 12th or 13th, I might need those points later if something happens at the other races. You know, in a perfect world, this is ranked number six of six on the races. So, I hopefully will drop those 13 place points, but bike racing is bike racing and you never know what's going to happen. A quick word from today's sponsor. A few years ago, I came out of my local coffee shop after a long winter spin to find my cafe lock on the ground, sliced clean in half. My Pride and Joy bike, it was gone. Just like that, a small fortune in kit. And frankly, part of my identity as a cyclist, it disappeared in seconds. If you've ever had that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, even imagining your bike getting stolen, wrecked, or damaged midtra, you know it's not just a possession. It's your freedom. It's your fitness. It's your sanity on tough weeks. That's where comes in. Whether it's theft, damage, crashes, racing, or travel, BICMO's got your back. Their in-house claims team makes the process fast and painless. And here's the kicker. With 50% off multibike cover, you can protect all your bikes and even your family or your mates bike under the same policy. No nonsense, no surprises. But isn't just about covering bikes. They actually care about the future of cycling itself and that's why I've partnered with them. If you ensure your bike with Bikmo today, they'll donate£10 toward trashfree trails to help clean up and protect our shared cycling spaces. So head on over to Bickmo.com and use the code roadman to get covered, save money, and support our wild spaces. All that information is in the description below. It's actually a great lesson for just anyone listening for gravel racing or road racing. It's like you just don't know what's going on in front. Just control your controllable. Like all you can do at that point is measure your effort to the finish and get leave everything out there. You can't figure out and predict the future dynamics of groups. Who's going to crash? Who's going to flat? Yeah. Yeah. You never know what's going to happen. And at that point, I kind of just played the average speed game. I was at 20 I think 22.2 when I flatted and I finished at 22.1. So just tried to keep the the momentum going. How obviously if we were to go back and replay the race and you were get to do a d or you try and get out in that early break and get ahead of the racing. How competitive is it to get into those early breaks?
You know from you know my experiences racing in Europe at times the early break can be very competitive to get into it. I think lot of be more competitive moving forward. Um I think this time I think it caught a lot of the field off guard. I think the advantage also we have on gravel especially with the rain is you can use a technical piece to get in the break. You know in the road you kind of have to use pure power. The teams look at each other. Are you happy with that? Are you good with that? Number 96 went up. Do you have him on your sheet to watch? It's more and then they block the road and and that's that. In gravel racing with maybe the biggest team being two people, you kind of just strategically put yourself up the road or at the front and then just drive the pace and then it's similar to mountain biking with bottlenecks. There will be gaps just because you don't know where they'll be, but someone's going to overlap wheels, someone's going to slip out, someone's going to cause a gap, someone's not going to be as technically inclined as someone else. So, you can kind of roll the dice on that being the case. Um, to a pretty, I guess, beneficial extent in terms of it's likely to happen. Um, it's just like sea otter. I don't think going up the corkcrew you'll win the race, but if you're 30th wheel, you're leaving yourself open to someone crashing, going into the dirt, someone crashing on the descent. There are more people between you and the front to drop wheels. So, yeah, like the lads from Pro Cycle, I don't know him super well, Simone. H but he had a big send early in Sea Otter as well. So, he's definitely one that likes to get out ahead of the racing. Yeah. No, I think that's also what makes this series so exciting is we've done two gravel races and both at sea level and now we're about to do well a quote unquote mountain bike race, a mountain bike race on drop bars at 10,000 ft of elevation. So, a lot of these guys, how do they perform at 10,000 ft, you know, and that's that's a new element. And then we go actually on mountain bikes for Schwamagan, which is like a two-hour dirt crit. And then we do a proper mountain bike race in Arkansas, where can you handle your bike? Can you keep air in your tires over rugged terrain? And then we end it with a more flat, heavy Arkansas course for gravel. So, I think it's that's what makes the the series interesting is they got to got to prove themselves in a lot of lot of different ways. Anyone in the top 10 that you didn't expect to be there, I'm looking at them. For me, they're not a lot of the household names, you know, obviously Keegan in seven, Boswell, former winner, former world tour rider in eighth. Uh Brendan Johnson's in fifth. I have to say I didn't know the Shrek lad at all that came toward uh Torborn Andre road. Don't know him at all. No. Uh I wouldn't say anything surprised me. I know Cam is super strong. We rode when he was out here for Sea Otter. I know Simon is also very strong. This is exactly what he used to do when he raced road. He was the most aggressive rider, most time in the brakes. Like he knows how to ride that kind of effort. Um, Toby, he's just super strong and he's super strong on any bike, on any surface. So, didn't surprise me there. Uh, Treky's put a lot of effort into this event. Um, he was in Kansas for the two weeks before. So, I think that's just a fruition of of the work he's put in and he's continued to get better. He was, I think, fourth in the series overall last year. So he's he's super strong and super strong again across any bike, any discipline, any surface. Who's the big losers? Anyone from the overall I'm trying to think Alexi, you know, sec was he second or third and se not featuring for me big losers need two bad results. I think you have room for one. Um so Alexi in my book now just has second and he just for now Unbound will be his drop race. So, he's not a big loser until he has another outside of the top 10 result or something not usual of Alexi. I think the I struggle to call him big losers because it sounds very mean, but I think in terms of of who's on the back foot maybe is Cole. Cole didn't have the sea otter he's capable of and then got sick coming into Unbound. Pac now has two DNFS. So, I'm thinking of people who now already have two results that would be outside their norm, I guess. And in that vein, uh, Russell kind of surprised me in terms of I wouldn't say he had the Sea Otter or the Unbound we've come to expect of him.