BONUS: Dispatches from Unbound (ft. Cecile Lejeune, Ruby Ryan, Payson McElveen, and Dominique Powers)

This year's Unbound was a mudfest that, for better or worse, produced some excellent stories. In this bonus episode, we hear from riders Cecile Lejeune, Ruby Ryan, and Payson McElveen about their most memorable mishaps from the day, and get an insider's account of what it's like doing media for the race from photographer Dominique Powers. 

Instagram: @talking.over.you

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Welcome to Talking Over You with Sarah Serm and Hannah Stern. Here we go. If you're gonna be an awful, at least be funny. At least be funny. I thought it was a man coon, but we need to have like a real athlete on the floor. It makes me uh consider different careers every time I have to pee in my chamois.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

One of the most memorable moments of Onbarn 2026 for me was uh falling over in a puddle. I was chasing back on with Sophia and Rosa after Feed 1. I'd stopped to get my bike washed, so I had been gapped. Um and got to the creek crossing at kilometre 73. Um I was behind Sophia and I came into it with more speed than her, and she uh changed her line in the puddle for a rock, I think, and um I had to also swerve and ended up uh falling down. Uh so yeah, that was caught on camera. Uh and I got back up, I was fine. I was actually, it was the best place to fall. Uh the water just um softened my landing. I got back on a bike just fine. Yeah, kept going. Um I lost a bit of time, I was able to catch back on before uh deciding climb Texaco Hill a bit further on. So it's all good. I lost it I did lose some energy from it, um, but I was all good. I did also lose my glasses. So there are some fish down there in the creek that have a nice pair of Joel Bo glasses now and 150 grams of carbs, which wasn't great for the rest of the day. But uh yeah, one of many unbound stories that uh I'm sure we'll be hearing more of in the days and weeks to come.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Okay, so basically after Feed Zone 2, um, I was so dropped and long gone anyway. I just keep riding. Um, and I didn't really have the route screen on my Wahoo app. I was just like looking at my stats and uh don't know why. And then I kind of just keep going straight, and then basically I wasn't like I was literally just out there, and the roads did seem really, really MMR, like super bad country, but I just keep riding honestly, made like one right turn and like a straight. And but I didn't see anyone for like an hour and a half, I don't think, at least. And then basically, this farming truck with boys come screaming down this road, but I was riding so slow, and they stopped by me and they were like, Are you doing that 200-mile race? And I was like, Yes. I was like, Yeah, and then he had the map on his phone, he pulled it up and he was like, Oh, and we looked, and he's like, Oh no, he's like, You're like 20 to 30 miles off course. I was like, What? That was like I was so done at that point, too. And then he was like, Oh, do you want to lift to the next feed zone? And I was like, Well, I'm in a race, like I can't really just take a ride to the next feed zone, I can't really cut the course, you know. And and I also knew you were tracking me. I'm like, they're gonna see that I'm going like 60 miles down this road back on course. Um, no, but then um I kind of just made the decision then. I was like, okay, sure, like I'm not if I'm 20 miles back to back to be on course, I'm not gonna ride 20 miles back and then get on the right course. So I was like, okay, what if I'll take the ride? I was pretty sure they took me um back they took me back to the close to the second feed zone, but I didn't know that. They just drove me around and then they said, okay, it's four miles to the next feed zone. I was like, sweet, I'll just pull out there and I start riding and I rode into the second feed zone. And I'd already been there before. So we I just did my own loop back to feed zone two, and I'd already done 140 miles on my Oahu back to feed zone two, so that's my call then. I was like, I'm not carrying on, I'm not gonna do a 260-mile I'm bound. So yeah. Then I that was it, then I just got found some people at Feed Zone 2 and they drove me back into Emporia.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

Hello, Sternburner and Hannah Banana, PP Pays in here reporting from the rental car lot in Bentville, Arkansas, headed back to Durango today, very stoked. Um you asked me to share my pea story from Unbound, which I will do now. Like many at Unbound, I got caught in the mud, but I got really caught in the mud and used this is I don't know, 10, 12 miles before the first aid, used all of my hydration to try to get my drivetrain going again, um, and was very legitimately just immobile. I couldn't other than on foot, I was not gonna be making any forward progress. And there was one other rider left back there with me, which was Dylan Johnson, who was suffering a similar plight. And he had a little bit of hydration left in his pack, and he I saw him about a hundred yards ahead, like very slowly dribbling from his bite valve, dribbling some water on his cassette. And I've I very desperately was like, Hey man, can you spare me any of that? Knowing full well that he couldn't. Um and he said he couldn't. And there was a little pause and I I started walking, and then he just said, Dude, just pee on it. And it really stopped me dead in my tracks because it was such an incredible light bulb moment. I'd spent 10 minutes, 15 minutes just you know, walking around looking for a runoff ditch, a puddle, something where I could fill my bottles to try to uh clean off the drivetrain, and it didn't occur to me that I had water inside me and that I could use that. Uh it was absolutely brilliant, and it helped me turn the corner. And I got going again, got to a a river um where I fully submerged the bikes, bike, kind of yikes, but um got it cleaned off so I could get to aid one. Uh the team power washed the bike, didn't tell me I was in 91st place, 20 minutes behind, which was a great move on their part. Got going again and um ended up actually having a very like um weirdly enjoyable effort, had amazing legs, made up in the end 50 spots. Um and on the result sheet, like it doesn't matter because I was still, I think, around 40th, um, and no one cares about 40th place. But from an adventure standpoint and just satisfaction of pushing through, there were some silver linings. Disappointment was very deep after the fact, but um I got to journal about being on my drivetrain and try to make sense of that from a life choices standpoint. Um so there you go. Keep up the good work with the pod and see y'all in Durango slash Mankus soon.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Hello Sarah and Hannah. This is Dominique Powers with the unofficial Unbound 200 Media Race Recap. Um, it was a wild weekend out there, and thought it'd be fun to share a little bit of our experience. Um, something that you may not see from the outside is that Lifetime actually lines up some Jeep drivers for the media, and over the years I've had some some gems, some quirky ones. There is, you know, as with in bike racing, there's a lot of uh personalities. Um and there's also some some shared camaraderie. And in a year past, the driver that I had was like, you know, us jeepers and you gravel racers are the same. We just have an engine and you use your legs. And I was like, you know, you're not wrong. Um other examples, Gretchen's driver for the last couple years. Um, her name's Wendy, she does scuba diving, and uh her Jeep is turquoise and named Sharkbait as an homage. Um, and this year my Jeep was orange and had a sticker that said booby bouncer across the across the dash. So got to stare at that all day. Very exciting. Um, some media accolades that um you know the the the standings, if you will, it's not the 200 and the 350, but rather stills in motion. Um, every year there's been more and more media at this race, and I love it. I think it's so inspiring. There are so many incredible people and incredibly creative folks that are out capturing this race. Like y'all, all you racers, you got it good because there's some good folks behind cameras. Um it's also really interesting, kind of like over the years to see like what trends come in and out. Um on the video sides, on the video side specifically, I saw a lot of slow motion, um, which I think like would kind of happen naturally, but also I'm really interested if it was partially influenced by the Uber slow motion video that came out um after Perry Roubaix. There was this video that got it's now at like almost four million views, um, and it's an incredible seeing like the riders going in super slow motion over the cobblestones, but I am yeah, interested in like how how much that influenced um people's choice to get some like super slow motion at Unbound. Um, which speaking of Danny Wang got a video of a butterfly flapping across frame in front of one of the Scott riders that he was following, which like I was really hoping for a lightning bolt shot. Like, I really wanted someone to get like a still photo with the rider and a lightning bolt in the background. I thought that would that would have been very fun, but you know, I think this butterfly was like a very close second. Um, Alex Roscoe got a great shot of like straight on on Keegan's face. It's like a super tight, um, tight shot, which is something that I've always wanted to commit to, and it's never quite worked out, so really I'm just jealous. Nice work, Alex. Um, Gretchen found a not cow-filled field. Um, she got a lovely shot of some riders coming through like a canopied section. Uh Grace Williams got a sick shot of the riders on the other side of the train, um, which I think is something that's so classic unbound that like you can be doing this huge race and just have shit luck and get stuck behind a train. And so you like see, like as the train's going by, you like see the riders on the other side. And I thought that was just like a great perspective and definitely like a lucky moment. Um Rygani got some great like nighttime shots of the 350, which was awesome because I love like night nighttime shots are sick, and you don't it's something that's like so classic of the 350. So nailed it there. Um I feel like there were others. There are you know, there are so many others, it's impossible to name everybody that was out there shooting. Um I I think one of my favorite shots is one of Danny Shrewsbury where um she just like looks cracked, but it got some good eye contact. It's just like a classic unbound finish line photo. Um, and yeah, great day out there all around on for both uh the still photographers and the motion guys um and gals. And yeah, tune in for more content at Big Sugar. Uh thanks for everything that y'all do, and just