Unbound XL 2023
From Top 20 to DNF
All smiles on the tractor with the Katahdin from Panorama cycles before the Unbound XL race
I was prepared but stressed out with all the painting and moving boxes I had to do back home before departure. I had big aspirations for this year’s Unbound. I actually wanted to do the XL distance (350 miles) because I perform better in long-endurance events. However, I did not get picked in the XL lottery but got picked in the 200-mile event lottery. One week prior to the event, I asked the organizers if I could upgrade to the XL, which they accepted. I was more excited to participate in the XL than the 200 miles, but I guess I didn’t know what I was putting myself into.
Train blocking after barely 300m into the race.
This year's edition of Unbound XL started with a long neutral start (aka train blocking the road). Then within the first 10mins, a guy hit the deck sideways really hard and another rider flew over him. 2 meters later another lady stops in the middle of the peloton. Once I was able to go around these guys, the heat and dust was building up. This made digestion very difficult under the sun. Took me an hour to go through the vomit in the mouth phase to be able to eat a little something.
Riders on the storm (The Doors)
First 150km everything was going well. I was still top 20-something. I refueled at the first service station and put back some chammy cream, plus the lights on the bike to go through the night. As soon as I left the station, that is when the shit hit the fan in the first really really muddy (peanut butter mud as we call it). I was prepared for this kind of scenario, I had a pair of chopsticks in my bag to get the mud off the wheels for tire clearance. However, I did not expect the mud to stick with stones and grass in the front and rear mech. This paste soon transformed into concrete. Making it almost impossible to shift the front derailleur. This was only the beginning, when I got into the real mud section in the dark around 10 pm, I couldn’t see if other riders were riding or walking and I didn’t know if the section was rideable or I had to walk.
Pushing hard on the first hundred km of Unbound XL on the Katahdin from Panorama cycles
As soon as the mud would start picking up I got off the bike and walked. However, I never expected the mud to clog the chain and then the rear derailleur pulley wheels ⚙️, hence as I got back on the bike the chain jacked the rear derailleur and bended the knuckle + derailleur hanger. Unfortunately, the b-knuckle is very hard to bend back in place, compared to a derailleur hanger. No bike shop around and obviously none would be open at this time of day anyway. I had no choice but to try to repair or hack my way out of this situation. I tried to bend back the b-knuckle in place, without much success. So I tried the best I could to set the bike as a single speed for like 3 hours, losing precious time and energy.
The moment when peanut butter mud destroyed my rear derailleur on my Katahdin from Panorama Cycles
When I found back my power bank
After riding a bit, I encountered another helpless rider, Chris Thorpe, who asked me if I would sell him my pedals. I still had hope I could finish the race somehow, although my chances were slim. So I kept my pedals but offered my support phone number so that Chris could get out of this hell. Then I lost my power bank in the middle of the night in a descent. I switched the batteries in my headlamp to try to find it back. Which I did!
Next morning (Saturday) in the Flint Hills, sticky and rocky mud all over again
Next morning, since I burned so much mental energy trying to fix the rear derailleur and didn't have any rest stop to buy a cold latte in the middle of the night. I was feeling really sleepy at around 7h30. So I put my bike into the long grass and slept there for like 20 minutes. When I woke up there was another rider just hanging there, he told me he was scratching his race. Then further down the road, another rider (Jarod, by the way I did leave your phone number at Casey's with the info to pick you up) exploded his rear derailleur and was telling me there were even more muddy sections coming up and I should quit the race. I was already hesitant so that pretty much set my mind at that moment with the sleepiness and lack of speed. I was able to keep moving afterward with my single-speed setup at least, but with the speed I could carry with one gear and a half, shifting my front derailleur by hand each time because not only the mud is sticky like argyle, it also dries like concrete; This made finishing the race and making it back to the airport on time... Impossible… I finally got to the second service station where there was WIFI. It was now or never the time to make my decision to continue the race or scratch.
So I scratched after 314km (riding approximately 60km off the official route) out of the envisioned 560km. I reached out to David Gagnon (Maghalie Rochette’s partner, which was my emergency option) and he said he could wait a bit for me. However, I was so slow on the bike with one gear, that I couldn’t catch him. I got to the checkpoint for Unbound 200 and I got a lift from another rider who was also scratching. It was the first time I had to abandon a race and hopefully the last one before a while... 🤞
Bike Maintenance
Unbound pays off for the most experienced riders in these kinds of conditions, mainly peanut butter mud. Tire choices are very difficult. People in the Unbound Facebook page were recommending maxing out the tire size for maximum puncture resistance, grip and comfort, hence I was going for 45mm mixed tires which I knew were fitting my frame easily with enough clearance in my experience. On the other hand, very muddy conditions would mean changing strategy entirely to go for narrower tires and optimizing tire and mud clearance but not sacrificing too much on the puncture resistance, so that would mean probably a 40mm tire. Also, I wonder if tires designed for hard-pack surfaces would shed off mud more easily? Or a mixed terrain tire remain the best option for Unbound considering the big rocks and the mud? What do you say (hit the comments section)?
I waxed my chain to improve durability and also I thought it would prevent mud from sticking to it. In the end, mud still found a way to stick to the chain and clog the entire drivetrain. I had even applied carnauba car wax to the frame, thinking it could prevent the mud from sticking too much to the frame. I don’t think it changed anything, unfortunately.
War scars
The mud sticking to the tire thread turned into some kind of wet/dry concrete and basically sanded off the frame where the tire (and mud) had slightly less clearance. This severely damaged the frame paint, even going through about 3 layers of carbon fiber on both chainstays. Panorama Cycles reassured me that there are still plenty of carbon fiber layers in this area so it is just a matter of re-painting. Some riders were even less lucky than me and completely went through their chainstays!
The worst frame damage is on the left chainstay, the mud and rocks went through 3 layers of carbon on the Katahdin from Panorama Cycles
Some damage is also visible on the right side of the fork.
Other scratches caused by left side crank power meter full of mud
Comparison of derailleurs showing how much the b-knuckle was bent
My rear derailleur got the b-knuckle bent, the pulley wheels with the mud grinded and the b-screw was rounded off. Plus I had to bend back the derailleur hanger. The front derailleur was completely stuck in the mud that turned to solid concrete, it also grinded down the skid plate. The mud in the chain also damaged some teeth on the inner chainring. I didn’t even bother measuring the chain stretch of what used to be a brand new and waxed Dura Ace chain, I’ve put it straight in the bin because of all the crap that went in and removing/adding links which probably weakened the chain.
Costs
| Item | Cost in $CAD | |
|---|---|---|
| Trip | Registration | 600$ |
| Hôtel | 400$ | |
| Airplane | 670$ + 230$ (Bike luggage) = 900$ |
|
| Car rental | 347$ | |
| Sub-total | Registration, Accomodation and transport | 2247$ |
| Parts to change | Dura ace chain (waxed with Silca super secret at home) | ~ 100$ |
| Rear derailleur knuckle | 30$ | |
| Derailleur hanger | 20$ | |
| Garbaruk pulley wheel set | 75$ | |
| Inner chainring | 75$ | |
| Paint repairs | ~ 300$ | |
| Sub-Total | Damage | ≈ 600$CAD |
| Grand total | Total damage + trip | approx. 2847$ |
Environmental impact
Like most cyclists who also commute in the city to help save our planet, I care about the pollution that I generate daily. Unfortunately Unbound is quite far from where I live, driving there from Montreal is not a good option (and possibly worse for the environment than flying there). Nonetheless, flying to Unbound in Kansas for all riders definitely has a significant carbon tax on our planet. The Life Time organization distributes goodie bags when you pick up your bib number. I feel a good part of this goodie bag is just going to waste (e.g. booklets) and could be distributed to riders digitally as a PDF one week before the race, again most of us are traveling by plane and we are not going to bring these back home plus we don’t really have time to read them at the race event. It saddens me to spend hundreds of dollars on high-end bike equipment to only throw it away after 600km of use because it is completely destroyed by riding conditions, that’s not very eco-friendly to me.
Conclusions
Although I watched several YouTube videos from Dylan Johnson, Tyler Pearce (The Vegan Cyclist), and other sources. Plus, read all the information in athlete guides, forums, and Facebook groups. I still got caught in the game, because it is still a gamble 🎲. Will it rain, will it be dry, will the mud stick or not? Do you go for maximum puncture protection or maximum tire/frame clearance? If I tell you a perfect forecast easy to tell, otherwise not so easy.
Lessons were learned, that's what counts right? Honestly, I was already hesitant to participate in the race with the lottery process, holding the capacity to register for another race without knowing if I was going to be picked. Looking at the pictures I wasn't convinced the landscape was going to be that interesting. I was going for the experience of the Unbound crowd. In the aftermath, I don't think all the money, stress, and hassle spent to do this race was worth it. I had some fun on some parts, but definitely not enough for the amount of trouble involved in the process. If you had 2900$CAD to spend, would you like to participate in a lottery where you have a 50% chance of being selected and then a 30% chance of just barely finishing the race (with probably a few mechanicals costing you a few hundred dollars extra and lots of frustration)? A race basically focused on “luck”? Although I didn't appreciate my experience as much as I'd like to. It was definitely an experience to have prior to the Transcontinental race which is also unsupported, but mostly on tarmac roads in this case (with a few very harsh gravel sections). Hopefully, after going to war I'll be more prepared! ⚒️
