Off-Road to Unbound
Riding 1,300 Miles to Race 300
By Kait Boyle & Kurt Refsnider
Kait Boyle and Kurt Refsnider are professional bikepackers, backcountry mountain bikers, and ultra-endurance cyclists.
They’ve been bikepacking for nearly three decades combined, have bikepacked around the world on six continents, and ridden/raced all the iconic long-distance bikepacking routes in the United States. Kurt’s ultra-distance palmares include 9x wins/course record on the Arizona Trail Race and wins in the Colorado Trail Race, Tour Divide, Iditarod Trail 350, and 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo. Kait is a 24-hour World Champion and has set records on the Arizona Trail 300, Coconino 250, Kokopelli Trail, and 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, all of which still stand years later. But, despite countless ultra-races and bikepacking trips, they’ve never really bikepacked on gravel bikes, and their gravel racing has been limited to just a handful of 100-mile events over the past decade.
So, when the pair decided to sign up for Unbound XL, a self-supported 350-mile gravel race in the Flint Hills of Kansas, it raised eyebrows for those who know Kait and Kurt's love of singletrack, mountains, and knobby tires.
A further reason for skepticism was Kait pronouncing herself retired from ultra-distance races back in 2022 after DNFing 24-hour Worlds in 2022 with a chronic pelvis injury that has persisted since a traumatic car accident in 2018. Then the pair decided that they would ride to the event from their respective homes in Victor, Idaho and Prescott, Arizona.
The following interview explores their rides to the event and how such a long commute impacted their races.
Why did you two decide to bikepack to Unbound?
Kait: It was my idea for each of us to bikepack to Unbound as a way to achieve the physical preparation that could lead to a significant base on my gravel bike that would in turn reduce the strain on my body for such a long race. Beyond that, bikepacking to the race would also be a way to create an adventure that was bigger than just the Unbound finish line. The vision was to build our routes to ride solo from our homes to the Front Range of Colorado where we’d meet up and continue on together across the Plains, and we both tried to include as many miles of unpaved roads as reasonably possible.
Kurt: I’ve been racing ultras for 15 years now, and in the past few years, I’ve found myself drawn more and more to big, adventurous bikepacking trips with no emphasis on speed. Last year I rode the whole 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail across Alaska and then the remarkably difficult 3,000-mile Continental Divide Trail across the U.S. Pedaling to Kansas was an easy ‘yes’ for me given how much I enjoy any trip that leaves from my front door, as well as for the opportunity to connect familiar landscapes of the West to the Great Plains where I grew up.
What were your rides to Emporia like? Did you enjoy that many miles of gravel roads?
Kait: The ride from Victor to the Front Range for me was 650 miles of pavement and dirt skirting the still-snowy Rocky Mountains. I was blessed with strong tailwinds and quickly found my flow riding across the wide open and wild Wyoming stretch. By the time I reached Colorado, I was loving my time riding solo as the miles quickly passed by.
Kurt: My ride through Arizona, New Mexico, and into Colorado was beautiful but rough! I spent hundreds of miles on rocky and rutted 2-tracks, sandy roads through the Painted Desert, and rough gravel beyond. In that first week of the trip, every single day was a full day just to get in ~100 miles in order to stay on schedule to meet Kait on the planned day. The miles across Navajo Nation were absolutely gorgeous, especially through the high still-green grasslands up in the mountains on the new Chuska MTB Route through pine forests and past dozens of lakes. Reaching Colorado was a relief as I knew the roads would be smoother and the terrain less demanding. I managed to make it to Kait and my planned rendezvous location in the South Platte Canyon on the afternoon as planned, and remarkably, Kait arrived there a mere 15 minutes after I did!
Kait: Our trip east out of the mountains and across the plains was the part that brought the most uncertainty for us. Where would we camp? Would there be water? Do the rural dirt roads actually go through? What will it feel like to pedal so much flat terrain? What if it storms?
These were questions that rolled through our minds. The route worked out smoothly and was nearly entirely dirt for 700 miles! Camping worked out between a hotel, a church/cemetery yard, a farmer’s yard (with invitation and repeated offers of ice for our bottles and a shower), and a tiny camping area at a reservoir. The one storm that hit us was intense, but we were fortunately able to find shelter. All the long stretches of flat pedaling was powerful mental training and led to a deep appreciation for the progression of the landscape from a flat monoculture agricultural world to one of lush, rolling prairie farther east. We rolled into Emporia six days before the start of the XL race with hopefully enough time to recover and prepare our bikes, bodies and minds for 24+ hours of racing. It felt incredible to arrive in town under the power of our own bodies and bikes. The 1,300 mile and two-week commute felt like a long journey, and it wasn’t until reaching Emporia that it sank in how far from home we had pedaled.
How well did you feel like you recovered between the end of your ride to Emporia and the start of your race there?
Kait: The 5 days we had in Emporia flew by as we focused on recovering and getting ready for the race. We balanced resting with preparation, and by Thursday our bikes were transformed from dusty and dirty bikepacking rigs to squeaky clean, lightweight race machines. Our bodies weren’t quite as quick to transform from bikepacking mode to race-ready. The reality was that 100+ hours of riding loaded bikes in two weeks eliminated our top end and left our legs fairly flat. We did our best to recover in the time we had and accepted whatever form we were lining up to start was just what we’d have.
Kurt: Yeah, afterall, you wouldn’t ride 1,300 miles to a race if your top priority was being in top form and feeling great at the start. We were there for an adventure and were ready to do our best on race day with what we had to work with. I also ate a ton that week leading up to the race – it seemed a bit ridiculous, but I was really hungry after those two weeks of pedaling to Kansas.
What was the race itself like? How did you end up feeling?
Kait: As warned, the XL start was fast and furious despite its distance. There were a couple crashes in the group early and just staying safe and surviving the first hour or two was a priority. I worked to stay in the front group and quickly realized that I didn’t have the legs to sustain that high pace for too long and then quickly fell backwards in the field. By focusing on riding steadily and staying on top of nutrition and hydration, I found myself moving back up through the field by the early morning hours of the night, about halfway through. I continued to feel better and better as the race went on, a testament to riding your own ride and being patient with the process and trusting that my endurance would pay off. I ended up racing to a podium finish in 4th place and finished in a similar time to the prior course record!
Kurt: I stuck with the lead group for the first couple hours before backing off just a touch to keep from digging myself into a hole early on – that pace was just a little more than my still-fatigued legs wanted to push. With the 3pm start, darkness came fairly early on, and I worked through most of the night with a few other guys taking turns pulling straight through the night. The rougher sections were just technical enough to keep me entertained, and riding in the company of others helped keep me alert even if we didn’t exchange all that many words. All that came as a relief since I had been concerned about the possible monotony of 24 hours of gravel roads. My energy seemed to steadily increase in the last half of the race, and I steadily moved up into the top 10 as I caught riders who had cracked, flatted, or run out of momentum for other reasons. My momentum only grew in the final hours, and I rolled into town to finish just shy of the old course record in 9th and quite proud of the result. It was a fast field this year!
Would you do it all again?
Kait: When all the dust settled, riding to Unbound was a memorable and impactful adventure. It was an amazing way to first experience Unbound, and it left room to wonder what would happen if I approached the race in a different way in the future. In the more immediate aftermath, it’s given me a revived confidence in my ability to race ultras and also built a base of huge fitness for the rest of the season. Now to just decide what to do with it…
Kurt: Oh geez, yeah, I’d probably do it again since I enjoyed it all so much. It’d probably have to wait a few years, though. Like Kait, I was left curious about how much faster I could have gone in the race had I not ridden there. But that long ride to Kansas left me really excited for the race and helped keep my attitude surrounding the race really relaxed. I feel like if I hadn’t ridden there, I would have put a lot more pressure on myself in both the training leading up to it and in the race itself, and that may have taken away from the enjoyment again. That curiosity certainly will eat at me, though, so perhaps I’ll be back.
