CONQUERING THE MUDFEST: THE LITESPEED TEAM AT UNBOUND GRAVEL 2026
UNBOUND Gravel has unbeatable hype. It’s the biggest gravel race in the world, and for riders, it often delivers their toughest challenge of the year. This year, for its 20th anniversary, it certainly delivered! Not only was the course all new and longer than ever (at 207 miles!), but Mother Nature decided to get involved and threw mud, rain, heat, and wind into the mix.
For many, this was the toughest edition of UNBOUND ever. With our titanium bikes, the Litespeed team was ready to face these challenges. It was brutal, but we came out on the other side with mud-covered smiles and plenty of stories to tell.
Our 2026 UNBOUND Goals
Allow me to introduce you to our Project Manager, Audrey Mace. If you read our UNBOUND recap last year, then you might recognize her. Last year, she podiumed her age group in the 100-mile event. This year, she decided to step up to the full 200-mile distance for the first time. Her goal? Beat the sun. That means finishing before sunset, in 14 hours and 15 minutes or less. A lofty goal for any rider!
This is my fifth UNBOUND 200, and my goal is simple: go faster. I’ve been training hard this year to try to increase my speed, and I was excited to put all that training to use. Unfortunately, the conditions on race day moved the goalposts.
Content Specialist Jay Prasuhn lined up for the UNBOUND 100-mile event, while Sales Engineer Sam Voight took on the UNBOUND 50-mile event. Their goals? Have an amazing day!
Our Titanium Gravel Bikes for UNBOUND
Audrey rode a Litespeed Toscano, and her frame was one of the first to be produced with Litespeed’s new Cerakote finish options. It has a blue anodized logo and was also one of the first frames to use our new “Heritage logo,” which uses a vintage-inspired font to celebrate 40 years of Litespeed. With big goals came a bigger chainring. Audrey’s gotten strong and upped her 1x chainring from a 40t to a 42t to hang with faster riders. Her tires were the tried-and-true 50mm Schwalbe G-One RX Pro.
I rode the same Toscano I used last year. The only change I made was to the tires, which are the 50mm Schwalbe G-One R Pro. Once again, I used a Cane Creek Invert SL gravel suspension fork for a bit of extra comfort on Emporia’s rough roads.
Jay rode his long-time steed, his Litespeed Ultimate G2. He was the only one of us riding a 2x drivetrain, which he said he regretted in the sticky UNBOUND mud. He had 50mm Panaracer GravelKing X1 tires and, interestingly, a dropper seatpost to get low on rough descents.
Sam was another Toscano rider. For a bit of extra comfort on the backside, he uses an Ergon CF Allroad Pro carbon seatpost, which features a pretty ingenious leaf-spring design to increase flex. For tires, he went with the popular 2.2” Continental Dubnital mountain bike tire on the front and a 50mm Continental Terra Hardpack on the rear.
Hot Trends & Topics at UNBOUND
32” Wheels
32” gravel bikes are coming whether you want them to or not. I’m short and don’t have much interest, but plenty of riders do. This was evidenced by all the buzz around last year's men’s champion, Cameron Jones, and two of his teammates racing on prototype 32” bikes. Several brands also brought 32” prototypes to show off at the expo, and yes, we’re one of them. I’m technically not allowed to show photos of these bikes yet (even though everyone there certainly took their own pictures!), so I’ll have to tease you with this badly cropped-in screengrab of a pair of 32” tires.
Mud, mud, mud
Is it really UNBOUND unless everyone is panicking about the mud? Emporia was getting hit with heavy rain all week, and some of the MMRs on the route were getting sloppy with the legendary UNBOUND “peanut butter” mud. Just like last year, I got endless texts and Instagram messages from people trying to find out if I was changing tires. Honestly, I was stressing out too! I ended up sticking with my setup in the end.
We got stuck in some serious mud during our recon ride on Thursday, and the water crossings looked seriously deep. By Friday, it seemed like things had dried up. Unfortunately, the rain came again. It ended up being a mud year, with lots of rain and deep water to wade through. These conditions are what make Unbound so tough and iconic, so it was pretty fitting for the race’s 20th anniversary.
Integrated Hydration Bladders
3 out of 7 have integrated bladders in this pace line.
The first jerseys and skinsuits with an integrated pocket designed to hold a hydration bladder first appeared in 2024. They were incredibly novel only two years ago, but now, it seems like the design has gone mainstream! This is mostly a curiosity to me. Gravel is evolving at a rapid rate, and the solutions riders and brands find to the unique challenges of races like UNBOUND are always interesting. Integrated bladders feel elegant compared to some of the other equipment that the Gravel Vanguard is trying, so I have a feeling these designs are going to keep improving until they dominate the sharp end of the race.
50mm & MTB Tires
At this point, it’s starting to feel like 50mm tires are becoming standard. I had a moment where I saw a bike with 40mm tires, and I thought, “That looks like a road tire.” My perception has shifted that much. It’s the reason all of Litespeed’s gravel bikes were redesigned to fit 50mm tires, with the Flint getting boosted to 54mm of tire clearance.
The hot tires I kept seeing at this year’s UNBOUND were the 50mm Schwalbe G-One RX Pro, 50mm Continental Terra Hardpack, 50mm Continental Dubnital, and the 2.2” Continental Dubnital. These tires are fast, comfy, and generally reliable.
Gravel Suspension Forks
Gravel suspension is still a bit niche, but I’m really starting to notice it more and more. There were a lot of Cane Creek Inverts, RockShox Rudys, and Fox Taper-Cast gravel suspension forks on people’s bikes. This is why we moved to suspension-corrected frames, to make it easy to swap in some extra squish if it’s ever needed. Suspension forks are becoming more mainstream, and I was super interested to see that so many UNBOUND XL riders chose suspension. It makes sense for a ride that big!
Our Race Day Recap
This was the toughest UNBOUND any of us have ever finished. This makes it all the more impressive that Audrey was able to achieve her goal of beating the sun! She didn’t just achieve it. She crushed it, with a finish time right around 13 hours. As I said, though, it wasn’t an easy day.
Audrey blew up after the last aid station at mile 160, so the last 40 miles were “the longest of [her] life.” She struggled to put out power, and her thoughts grew dark. Though she suffered, it wasn’t entirely because of the rain and mud.
“I thought it was so exciting!” she said. “I'm a Missouri girl.”
She had to pour water on herself all day. In the first half, it was to clear her glasses and get mud off her face. In the second half, it was to cool off and try to clean off the thick layer of mud baking onto her skin and kit.
One of Audrey’s highlights was riding with Yuri Hauswald, a former UNBOUND champion, for much of the day. They passed each other back and forth all day, and Yuri even gave her a “Golden Ticket.” He started last at this year’s UNBOUND as part of the Life Time Foundation's Chase the Race initiative to raise money for a future kids' bike park in Emporia. The Golden Tickets were for special riders who helped make his day special.
“He was super strong when he passed me the first time,” Audrey said. “Then I caught on and rode with him in a group for a while, then yo-yo’d for a while, then at the end we were both blowing up (I blew up WITH Yuri!). I redeemed my Golden Ticket for a new Schwalbe G One RS tire.”
Audrey ended up finishing 15th overall among the women and podiumed in her age group! Just like last year, she got to celebrate on stage at the award ceremony in Emporia’s Granada Theater.
Jay and Sam embracing the rain and mud.
I’ll keep the rest of this summary very brief (especially since we didn’t have the amazing day Audrey did!). If you’re interested in my details, my full recap is in the video linked above. The short version is: I didn’t come close to hitting my time goal (under 12 hours), but I was proud to fight through the conditions to the finish, despite wanting to quit multiple times. Jay and Sam fought through the mud as well, and both finished in good spirits.
See You Next Time!
UNBOUND is always the highlight of our gravel calendar, so of course, you can expect us there next year! If you’re in Emporia during race week, be sure to come by the Litespeed booth for swag, event-specific discounts, or just to see our latest and greatest creations.
