On Saturday, Alex Howes and Lachlan Morton will race UNBOUND—America’s great gravel race.

For 200 miles, they will navigate the rocky dirt roads that roll over the Kansas prairie. At six a.m. local time, they will head out from downtown Emporia with thousands of other riders, hoping to return by late afternoon as winners. If it rains, and it is supposed to rain, it will be a very long and painful mud bath.

“I’m mostly looking forward to the fact that it’s not going to be super hot,” says Alex Howes. “It looks like it’s going to be muddy this year so that’s definitely going to be a joker card. It could rain early on, it could rain in the middle and it could rain at the end so it really depends on when and where it rains on this course. Some spots it’ll be fine, and other spots it’ll make for some very tricky riding. We could be looking at a 200-mile ultra running race with bikes.”

So much might happen. That is what makes UNBOUND special. Alex and Lachlan won’t have an army of soigneurs out in the Kansan fields to feed them bottles before they get thirsty. They won’t have a mechanic in a team car with extra bikes and extra wheels like they do at pro road races. At UNBOUND, there are a few pit stops on the route for everyone to use. Otherwise, riders have to carry all of their fluid and fuel on their bikes or their backs. Alex and Lachlan will have to fix their own flats, just like everyone else. Preparation is all the more important.

UNBOUND is likely to be over ten hours of racing. That’s for the winner. Pushing over pebbles and grit, splashing through rivers, and speeding up and down the Flint Hills, Alex and Lachlan will burn enormous amounts of energy. To have strength in their legs in the last hour of racing, when the wheat is separated from the chaff, they will have to consume 90 to 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour.

Neversecond will make that easy.

“I’ll use the C90 drink mixes and I'll cycle that with the C30 which should give me some more electrolytes if it’s hot,” Lachlan says. “I’ll try to do that every hour ideally. Then, I'll bring some emergency gels in case I lose a bottle or something between aid stations.”

Alex Howes prefers to race on gels which he will pair with a few bottles of C90 and water bladder.

“I’m going to be gelling pretty hard,” he says. “I’ll try to get a few C90s down too but I don’t really do too well off of a full day of C90, so the mix of the two will be good. I’ll probably go through 10 gels over 10 hours plus the C90s and then mix in some solid food in there, old school.”

Alex and Lachlan have set up their bikes for the unique challenge of the race too.

Although everyone at UNBOUND starts out in one big peloton, it is much more of a rider-against-rider contest than a road race. On dirt, no one can just roll along in the draft. On fatter, more durable tyres—the guys are running 38mm Vittoria Terreno Dry’s to handle the loose rocky and at times muddy surface—you always have to be pressing on the pedals. That doesn’t mean that aerodynamics aren’t important. The first time they showed up to UNBOUND, he didn’t bring aerobars. Once the peloton had broken apart and he had to ride into the wind alone or in small groups, he had it a lot harder than the guys who had mounted extensions on their bars, even at slower speeds. This year Lachlan has Vision Speed Extensions mounted on the Metron bars to tuck himself out of the wind. That will save him valuable energy over the course of the race and buy him an extra kilometre or two per hour of extra speed at the decisive moment. Alex is opting for a more traditional Vision Metron integrated bar and stem which should hopefully give him a slight aero advantage while also saving some weight.

While a 200-mile race will never be easy, Lachlan and Alex take comfort in the fact that they’ve done this before. “It definitely helps to have experience at the race,” says Lachlan. “Last time we didn’t really know what we were doing at all and this time we know a little bit more. So I feel a lot more at ease with the course and the undertaking of a 200 mile gravel race.”

We can’t wait to go racing in the Flint Hills.

// Cannondale SuperSix Evo CX

// Cannondale HollowGram cranks

// Vision Metron handlebars & Vision Speed Extensions

// FSA Stem

// Vittoria Terreno Dry 38 tires

// Shimano Dura-ace drivetrain (52/36T x 32/11)

// Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT

// Vision Metron Wheels

// Prologo saddle

// Cannondale SuperSix Evo CX

// Cannondale HollowGram cranks

// Vision Metron handlebars

// Vittoria Terreno Dry 38 tires

// Shimano Dura-ace drivetrain (52/36T x 32/11)

// Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT

// Vision Metron Wheels

// Prologo saddle