WorldTour
Unbound: Emil Herzog cracks the top 8 at his gravel debut
The 21-year-old German swapped the tarmac for more than 300 kilometers of Kansas gravel – and finished eighth on his very first start at Unbound Gravel, the biggest gravel race on the planet.
It isn’t yet six in the morning when the gravel of the Flint Hills begins to crunch under several thousand tires. No team cars, no race radio, no familiar bunch to hide in – just Emporia, Kansas, an open sky that will soon turn hostile, and hundreds of kilometers of dirt road stretching out into the prairie. For Emil Herzog, a WorldTour road pro far more used to the choreography of the peloton, this was a different world entirely. However, somewhere out on those endless gravel roads, the 21-year-old German from the Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe rider discovered a new passion.
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The biggest day in gravel
There is no gravel race in the world like Unbound. What started in 2006 as a small, unsupported endurance challenge across the rural roads around Emporia – back then still called the Dirty Kanza – has grown, two decades on, into the sport’s most prestigious event. The signature 200-mile race (closer to 207 miles, or some 330 kilometers, in this year’s layout) now pulls WorldTour stars, gravel specialists and first-time amateurs onto the same start line, all of them bound by the same ruthless principle: self-sufficiency.
Emil Herzog and his Specialized Crux
© Specialized
Out in the Flint Hills you can ride for miles without seeing a car, a house or a drop of water, and the only help comes at a handful of designated feed zones. The fastest finish in nine to eleven hours; many never finish at all. This year, true to form, a storm rolled through and turned long stretches of the course into the infamous “peanut butter mud” – sticky clay that wrecks drivetrains and ends races on the spot.
Unbound Gravel
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A road pro on the gravel
Into this stepped Herzog, lining up under the banner of the Specialized Off-Road team for what was both his first gravel race and his first trip to the United States. “It was my first gravel race, and a super cool experience with the Specialized Off-Road team,” the 21-year-old said after the race. “I’m really grateful I got this opportunity – and for a first attempt, it actually went quite well.”
It was my first gravel race. I’m really grateful I got this opportunity – and for a first attempt, it actually went quite well.
For a rider schooled in road racing, the format alone was a leap into the unknown: no convoy of cars handing up bottles, no soigneurs at every roadside, just what you can carry and what you can grab at the feeds. Which is exactly where it nearly went wrong. “I made a beginner’s mistake,” Herzog admitted. “I missed my second feed, so I started running out of energy, and then I got dropped from my group.”
Unbound is one of the biggest gravel races in the world
© Specialized/roszko
On a road stage, an empty pocket can usually be solved within minutes. At Unbound, with the next feed still kilometers of gravel away, an empty pocket is a slow-motion crisis. Herzog drifted backward, the group rode away, and the day looked like it might come apart in the middle of Kansas.
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Back from the brink
However, it didn’t. At the third feed, Herzog finally got food back into the system – and with it, his race. “At the third feed I could eat again and got my legs back a little,” he said. “I was able to keep riding, a bit quicker than right after I’d missed the feed, and in the end I came home eighth.”
The tough conditions make the race especially hard
© Specialized/roszko
That bare result undersells the company he was keeping. As the race exploded over the muddy sectors, Herzog found himself in the elite chase behind the leaders, in among seasoned gravel names and former champions, just under 25 minutes down on a dominant solo winner. For a first time on this terrain, in these conditions, on this stage, eighth place was a genuinely strong return.
It was a really cool day, a great result and great fun. I'm sure I want to do it again.
He had a front-row seat, too, for one of the stories of the day. His Specialized Off-Road squad rode the race like a road team – tactics that have well and truly arrived in gravel. “My teammates from Specialized Off-Road went one, two and five – four of us in the top placings,” Herzog said. “It was a really cool day, a great result and great fun. I'm sure I want to do it again.”
Emil wants to come back to Unbound in the future
© Specialized/roszko
