Durango’s Sarah Sturm was so close to her second consecutive podium at Unbound Gravel. The 34-year-old was with the top group for the entire 200-mile gravel race on Saturday which started and ended in Emporia, Kansas and was a part of the Lifetime Grand Prix circuit.
Unfortunately, after turning the last corner in the sprint in the lead, Sturm lost out in the sprint to the finish and finished seventh. But in the process, she worked with her teammate Geerike Schreurs toward the finish which allowed Schreurs to finish second.
Denmark’s Rosa Klöser won the elite women’s 200-mile race with a time of 10 hours, 26 minutes and 2 seconds. Schreurs finished second with a time of 10:26:03 and Sturm finished seventh with the same time.
Unbound Gravel was a unique experience for the women involved this year because the elite women’s field got its own start. In most gravel races there is a mass start with all of the elite men, elite women and amateur men.
A mass start race is totally different for the elite women compared to the elite women getting their own start, according to Sturm. She said the tactics are different because in a mass start, the elite women’s race turns into who can hold on to the elite men for the longest. This “explodes the race” as Sturm put it and spreads out the women’s elite field. Sturm said last year when she finished third she didn’t know she did when she crossed the line because things were so spread out.
This year with the elite women getting their own start, Sturm said tactics came into play more. Women could work together and then riders could attack and since the women were together setting the pace in a big group they could respond to whoever was attacking.
“I actually felt great all day,” Sturm said. “It was crazy, I've never really had that sensation before. The downside of women not getting to race our own race very often is that we don't get to practice things like finishes. So while I am happy that my teammate got second and I got to be a part of that, seventh doesn't really reflect the effort and how I was feeling all day. I was one of the strongest ones, but I definitely was not one of the strongest sprinters.”
Sturm said the top seven riders broke the women’s record for the race. She said last year they raced the South Course and this year they raced the North Course. Sturm said there wasn’t much difference between the courses other than the North Course being a bit rougher with embedded rock sections and lots of sharp shale which made the chance of a flat tire a lot higher.
The women’s field was full of riders from around the globe with Klöser from Denmark, Schreurs from the Netherlands, Haley Smith from Canada, Carolin Schiff from the Netherlands, Tiffany Cromwell from Monaco and Danni Shrosbree from Great Britain all in the top 15.
“This is the deepest, fastest women's field of unbound that we've ever had,” Sturm said. “So there's definitely a much heavier European influence in the sport. You have women coming from World Tour, road race backgrounds, World Cup mountain bike backgrounds, you have people coming into the sport from all over the world. It's pretty exciting. This year, I think we had the most international field that we've had before.”
Sturm is heading to Kenya next for the four-stage Migration Gravel Race.
Fellow Durangoan Payson McElveen finished eighth in the elite men’s 200-mile race at Unbound Gravel. McElveen finished with a time of 9:16:35. Lachlan Morton won the race with a time of 9:11:47.
McElveen said it was cool to hear a bunch of different languages spoken in the peloton in a race in the United States.
“There was that early break (breakaway group) that went away around the halfway point and it was a little frustrating to not have the cohesion in our main group to kind of work together to bring it back,” McElveen said. “There were a lot of tactics going on within the race that made it hard to control that breakaway. So ultimately, we didn't get a chance to fight for the win. But overall, I'm just super thrilled with how I felt and being there in the front mix for the very end was very cool.”
The 31-year-old was in the middle of the pack at the beginning of the race but moved up into the top 20 at the 101.6-mile mark and stayed there for almost the rest of the race.
McElveen was as high as fifth as he crossed the 187.7-mile marker before crossing the finish line eighth.
His eighth-place finish out of 117 elite men finishers came at an average of 21.86 miles per hour.
McElveen said it was a pretty fast day in the men’s elite race with some changes in wind direction but the wind was pretty light.
Also in the men’s elite race from Durango was Cody Cupp. He finished 56th with a time of 9:55:02. Cupp was in the middle of the pack throughout the race and finished with a pace of 20.45 mph.
Durango’s Howard Grotts didn’t finish the men’s elite Unbound Gravel race after he had a puncture and he’s been suffering from saddle sores for a few months. Grotts retired after serving in a domestique role for his team for the first part of the race.
“That was a nagging issue for me,” Grotts said about his saddle sores. “So luckily, it's more or less in the rear view. But it was important to me to not dig another hole, since I just dug myself out of one, by pushing through the race. It's part of professional sport in a way, it doesn't feel good to not finish a race. I'm capable of it, but then I’m also trying to keep a bigger perspective and plan for the rest of the year.”
Grotts said he wanted to be there for his team even though he wasn’t feeling his best. His domestique role in the gravel race was to give a wheel to his teammate if there was a flat tire.
The 31-year-old said it’s the most competitive gravel race he’s been in and said it sheds some light on how gravel racing can be in the future. Grotts said although there are better gravel tracks in the country, Unbound Gravel was one of the first gravel races to get media attention and it is part of the Lifetime Grand Prix series so that also adds to its prestige.
Grotts’ next event will be the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail this weekend.
In the women’s elite race, Durango’s Ellen Campbell also had to retire. She had damage to her bike after there was a crash early in the women’s race.
“I didn't actually fall down,” Campbell said. “I had to come to a quick halt and someone ran into the back of my bike and took out my shifting so I didn't have any ability to change gears. So I single-speeded for the next 50 miles. So I was trying to keep up with the group but because I couldn't go into my easy gears, any of the steeper climbs were harder. I just used a lot of energy and muscle to try to stay with the group.”
Then Campbell got to the aid station at the 70-mile mark, was alone and decided to stop as she knew it wasn’t in the cards for her on Saturday.
Campbell echoed Sturm’s statements about how big of a deal the elite women having their own start was. She said it was special to see the women dictate the pace and follow other women instead of trying to follow the men.
She isn’t sure how she would’ve finished this year but Campbell was feeling good in the beginning of the race and did finish 15th last year at Unbound Gravel.
Campbell’s next event will be the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail this weekend.
“Seeing a group of nine women come to the finish line together for a sprint, really showed the community and the world of cycling that women need their own race in gravel and it's possible,” Campbell said. “That lead group of nine women never got caught by the lead amateur crew, which shows we are as strong and we don't need the men to make our race interesting or important.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
