In 2021 when Ian Boswell returned to racing, after having retired in 2019 from seven seasons on the WorldTour, he decided to try gravel and shot straight to the top in the fledgling discipline by winning the elite men's title at Unbound Gravel 200.
The 2021 winner said he never expected to return for multiple years to suffer across the Flint Hills of Kansas, but return he has. Boswell has finished third, fifth the next two times and then outside the top 50 last year, and has hopes to this year stay in the lead group and contest for a third podium in his five outings.
"I can’t believe that if I have a clean run that is 1,000 miles of Unbound," Boswell told Cyclingnews about the race that propelled him to fame in the gravel world four years ago.
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"It’s always a special event and I think a bit more so this year given it’s my fifth. I’m looking forward to being in it with the best in the game and seeing how my experience at the event helps."
Experience is a key to not only creating a plan but staying out of trouble for the 200-miles of gnarly, unkempt prairie roads and trails. Plus Boswell just sees the competition amping up each year, which makes it more of a challenge to train year-round and balance life outside cycling.
"The gravel space and environment has changed a lot, going back just four years. The beauty of it for me was that you could have a pretty balanced lifestyle, still be competitive – you weren't doing 30 to 40-hour weeks," he said. "Slowly that has become less possible.
"Not to say that I'm not still competitive in races, but, you know, it's a lot harder now. My life choices to live in Vermont and work a full-time job and have a family, and then you know, open up Strava and see you know all my competitors in Tucson riding, six and seven hours in January, February. I do what I can to try to hang with them."
He's not throwing in the towel. Instead he leans on his experience, and accepted that his commitments to a family of two young children and a full-time job at Wahoo Fitness lead him to a different path of preparation for Unbound.
"The last couple years, I've put a lot of effort into trying to get ready for Unbound. I'm really trying to take a slower approach to the spring, because there's so much great riding in the summer," he told Cyclingnews at his first race this spring in Franklin, Georgia, where he went to avoid the cold of his home in Vermont.
"Oftentimes, afterwards, I've had a physical or psychological crash, like I've either gotten really sick or just mentally been fatigued from training through snow and rain and mud from living in the north.
"The style of racing and the atmosphere here [in Georgia] reminds me a lot of what I first found when I came and started doing gravel in 2021. I love this. It's hard, it's competitive, but it's also a sense of camaraderie. It's so much fun."
Boswell has not focused on a batch of traditional gravel races, but has kept his schedule flexible and full of variety. After going fifth at Homegrown Gravel in Georgia, he mixed in the five-day Fireflies Patagonia, going from Chile to Argentina, then racing at The Growler in California and The Gralloch in Scotland. The gravel race in the UK which was won by Petr Vakoč was his first UCI Gravel World Series event and he went ninth in a heavy-weight field, also qualifying for the UCI Gravel World Championships in October.
"It was a beautiful week with fantastic weather and my first UCI race was a fast and hard one on a fantastic course. The Killochan Cycling 'team' was simply a group of folks that all spent a week at the Killochan castle in Scotland and did the event together, be it in their own categories," he said about the trip overseas with his family and friends. "I do have Scottish heritage but the Boswells are about 60 miles north of the castle where we stayed."
Because of the trip to Scotland, Boswell will not be racing at Gravel Locos in Texas and will instead head to Kansas after some time at home in Vermont.
Completing the 200-mile gravel race for a fifth time, win or lose, will land him in a select club, the Gravel Grail, recognising riders who log 1,000 miles in Kansas. Also known as the 1,000-mile club, 'membership' is earned for riders who rack up the mileage exclusively in the Unbound Gravel 200 event, so distance from Unbound 100 or Unbound XL do not count.
Last year Peter Stetina was enthroned into the Gravel Grail along with about 30 other riders, receiving accolades at the awards ceremony and a custom glass chalice, which he described as "a massive crystalware goblet" as he noted the achievement "was all about community". Another notable pro in the club is women's two-time Unbound Gravel 200 winner Amanda Nauman.
Whether he wins Unbound, contends for a podium spot or just claims his Gravel Grail, Boswell maintains a steady and outwardly calm presence in Kansas.
"The event's grown, it's gotten faster. The bikes are faster, equipment is quicker, there's so much more dynamic to the event. You can get caught up in that, but it's awesome to come back and speak to people and realise there's a balance between people - those at the front and people just here to ride, to experience it and finish," said Boswell. "The people at the front are just going faster but the masses are still going to show up here and enjoy what gravel racing is all about."
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