This year’s Unbound was one of the most dynamic and exciting in the event’s history, featuring two new winners, separate starts for the elite men and women, and a nine-up sprint at the women's finish. Payson caught up with two of the top riders to get the lowdown from inside the men’s and women’s fields. We also hear from some of the riders across the other categories, from 50-milers to the Unbound XL.

Photos: @unboundgravel, @velophoto.tx

Jasper Ockeloen started racing on the road in the Netherlands when he was 8 years old and took up cyclocross not long after. The combination has come in handy now that he’s turned his focus to gravel and the increasingly popular discipline of beach racing, where he's a two-time European champion. In addition to racing, he runs the aero-sock brand Sockeloen, which is favored by some of the world’s top pros.

At 46, Kateřina Nash has been racing bikes for three decades and continues to compete at the highest level. Originally from the Czech Republic, she competed in skiing throughout her early life, even competing in two Winter Olympics before discovering a love for mountain biking. She was part of the first cohort of the groundbreaking LUNA Pro Team in 2002, and stayed with the team for more than two decades. For the past few years, she has also served as a Vice President of the UCI and President of the Athletes’ Commission.

Kenny Belaey started riding professionally at age 9 when he and his brother began doing trial biking shows in their native Belgium. Since then, he’s racked up nine UCI world championship titles in the discipline, more than any other rider. But even during the peak of his racing career, Kenny kept up with the performance circuit, using the shows as a training ground for the next competition. Now living in Bentonville, he runs the Bentonville Bike Fest, an ever-expanding three-day event featuring nearly every style of cycling.

After participating in the Life Time Grand Prix in its first two years, Taylor Lideen missed out on a spot this year. While that might leave some riders struggling for motivation, it’s done the opposite for him. Two weeks ago, at Sea Otter (the first Grand Prix race of the season), he snagged 6th place, just seconds off the podium. The next weekend, he placed 6th at Whiskey Off Road. Taylor attributes these results to multiple factors, including a brand new approach to training that has put him in the best shape of his career.

The Grand Prix is back and Hannah Otto is here to give a rundown of the first race of the season. She and Payson discuss the opposite tactics that played out in the men's and women's races, which new and returning riders caught their attention, and how the Cape Epic might have influenced the podium. They also answer a few listener questions and reveal the nutrition tip Hannah gave Payson the day before the race that ended up saving him on the day.

After four years of pestering, Payson has finally convinced Nichole to return to the show to talk about her most recent trip to Uganda. In 2017, she visited the country for the first time to teach pathology residents and, based on her experiences and newfound connections there, started Path of Logic, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving cancer diagnostics and outcomes in equatorial Africa. She’s returned every year since to expand Path of Logic, and even started a Master’s program in Public Health at Johns Hopkins to deepen her work.

It takes a particular kind of grit to win the grueling 800-mile Atlas Mountain Race, and Cynthia Carson did it on less than five hours of sleep. The rising bikepacking star has had quite a year, winning Spain’s infamous desert race Badlands in September and becoming the first woman to finish in the top 10.

At 21 years old, Luke Lamperti is already riding for one of the biggest teams in the WorldTour, Soudal–Quick-Step, and he's hit the ground running. Since the season began, he’s racked up podiums at the Challenge Mallorca, the Muscat Classic, and the Tour of Oman, solidifying his place as a young rider to watch.

At approximately 12:30 a.m. last weekend, Beth McBride crossed the finish line of Mid South to a thunderous reception. The race is known for its celebration of riders of all levels, and the final rider to cross the finish line is arguably more of a celebrity than the first rider.

In 2019, Morgan Aguirre decided to step outside of her comfort zone. Having never competed in any sports, she rented a bike from her local Trek store with the goal of riding 50 miles. Things escalated quickly, and soon, fellow Seattle resident (and now WorldTour rider) Veronica Ewers saw her posts on Strava and asked her to join the Fount Cycling Guild, a Seattle-based team geared towards new riders. But just as her aptitude for road racing was becoming increasingly apparent, Morgan made an unusual decision: she moved to Spain.

During his eight years in the WorldTour, Paul Voss rode for some of the most successful teams in the sport, including Milram, Endura Racing, and Bora-Argon 18. In that time, he raced in multiple Grand Tours, and even wore the polka dot jersey for a stage of Tour De France in 2016. But in that same year, he was pushed off the Bora team when Peter Sagan signed on and brought several of his teammates with him. At 30, Paul retired from road racing, became a director sportif for Wiggins, did some cycling commentary for German TV, and put all his savings into starting a junior development team. Now, he’s found a second racing career in gravel.

In 2023, just four years after competing in his first bikepacking race, Ulrich Bartholmoes won the biggest race of them all, the Tour Divide. The 2,745-mile route is always at the mercy of the elements, but Ulrich and his two fellow race leaders found themselves in a particularly strange (and scary) predicament when cold temperatures and constant rain left more than a hundred miles of the route unrideable. In a stroke of luck, the three racers happened upon a porta potty in the Great Divide wilderness, where they huddled together for almost 12 hours.

Danni Shrosbree knows a thing or two about multitasking. Having spent years juggling a full-time job in the footwear industry alongside professional road cycling, the British cyclist added the Life Time Grand Prix to her roster last year, traveling between races in Europe and the U.S. while holding down her in-person day job. Despite this grueling schedule, she placed 4th at Unbound a week after finishing the Ride London stage race.

In 2016, Christian Meier made an unusual decision: at the age of 31, he walked away from a successful WorldTour career a year before his contract was due to end to focus on the coffee shop he and his wife had just opened in Girona, Spain. That year, they opened two more businesses. After dabbling in off-road racing for a couple of years, he made a second unconventional transition. He started competing in trail running events and found so much fulfillment in it that his focus began to gravitate toward professional sports again.

PC: @shitinthewoods

Lawson Craddock grew up in the flatland of Houston but fought his way onto the WorldTour feeder team Trek-Livestrong when he was still a teenager. After turning pro three years later, he raced for Giant-Shimano, Cannondale, and his current team, Jayco–AlUla. In his 10 years in the WorldTour, he's taken podiums at the Vuelta, won the Time Trial National Championships in back-to-back years, and had a standout performance at the 2018 Tour de France, but not for the usual reasons.

In 2022, Heidi Franz was approached with an enticing offer: B&B Hotels-KTM, a revamped team with a sky-high budget and some of the biggest WorldTour riders set to sign on, wanted her on its roster. But after months of unfulfilled promises and extensive press coverage, the team collapsed, leaving Heidi and dozens of other riders without a team right before the 2023 season. When an unknown team called Zaaf approached her and several other would-be B&B team members, there was nowhere else to go.

Known to his fans as Jack Ultra Cyclist, Jack Thompson has been smashing world records left and right for close to a decade. Growing up in Perth, Australia, he struggled with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder as a teenager and eventually entered rehab for a drug addiction. Once he was able to channel his focus into cycling, however, he found his element. Quitting his construction job and moving across the world, he found a niche tackling seemingly impossible ultra challenges and raising money for mental health charities.

In 2014, Sam Gaze was a privateering teenager from a rural farming town in New Zealand when he took the men's title in the opening round of an eliminator World Cup in Cairns, Australia. With this breakout ride, he caught the eye of Specialized Racing and relocated to Europe, where he went on to claim five world titles, including U23 World Champion and Elite Marathon and Short Track World Champion. He now races for UCI team Alpecin–Deceuninck where he competes in the WorldTour as well as the World Cup.

Before migrating to off-road racing last year, Czech cyclist Petr Vakoč spent nearly 10 years racing in the WorldTour, most notably as a member of team Quick-Step. During his road career, he made the start list of multiple Grand Tours, including the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia, and won the Brabantse Pijl in Belgium in 2016 after years of focused preparation.