Dylan Johnson’s Unbound Race Report + Photo Gallery

8 Jun

5 MIN

Unbound Gravel is perhaps the biggest, most important gravel race of the season. Four Jukebox racers, including Dylan, were on the start line participating in the 200-mile edition of Unbound. Not only were they going for the win, Unbound is stop #2 of the 6-race Lifetime Grand Prix Series, so a lot was on the line. Dylan finished 25th after a well-executed ride, and that finish moves him into 13th place in the overall Lifetime Grand Prix standings.

Here’s how his race went:

I actually felt like my race went really well, in that it was probably the best executed Unbound performance that I've ever had... Even if the competition has gotten so high that maybe the placement didn't show it.

I came in with a very unconventional race strategy, which was to basically ignore whatever the front group was doing and just ride at last year's winning average speed. The hope was that I would just be catching people nonstop and the second half of the race, I would make up a bunch of time. I know that generally, people will go too hard in the first half and then fade in the second half, if not completely blow up.

The plan went really well. I actually recruited other riders to do it with me so that I wouldn't be alone, and I actually spent no time in the race solo except for the last 20 minutes. I caught a bunch of riders that either had flat tires or other mechanicals.

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I managed to average 20 miles per hour for the first and second half, which was was last year's average speed. And that meant I just barely made it under 10 hours. I'm pretty pleased with that. Going under 10 hours had only been achieved once before this year and then this year, that record just completely got obliterated.