UNBOUND UNLEASHED

Josh Patterson was one of 34 starters for the inaugural edition of Unbound in 2006. Now, with more than 5,000 riders taking part in today’s event, he charts the rise of the most important race in gravel

Josh Patterson

Unbound was an unlikely candidate to become the most important gravel race in the world. It began in Kansas, a state most people drive through or fly over, in a rural town with an even smaller cycling community. Back in 2006, there were only a handful of other events that could accurately be categorised as gravel races. It’s not that the deck was stacked against Unbound, then named Dirty Kanza; it’s that founders Jim Cummins and Joel Dyke were playing with an entirely different deck of cards, with no inclination of what the race they created would become – nor how it would reshape cycling. “Joel Dyke and I founded the event for one simple reason,” Cummins tells me. “We wanted to ride it. We knew that if we didn’t…

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Cycling Plus (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2024

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