Karolina Migoń is now a two-time Traka 360 winner as she heads back for second bid for a top finish at Unbound Gravel 200. Even with a growing list of victories and top finishes, the Polish rider who makes Switzerland home still juggles two careers - one involving bikes and the other with computers.
To push herself on a relatively-young gravel career, Migoń started 2025 by adding new equipment sponsors and a coach, and worked out a plan with her engineering employer so she could concentrate on some races. While she said she really likes her full-time job as a software engineer, Migoń admitted, "I enjoy cycling a bit more".
"Thanks to my amazing employer, I’m taking 5 months off from my professional job to fully focus on riding my bike. Grateful, excited, and ready for the adventure," Migoń shared on social media as she prepared for her US block of racing later in May.
Last year after winning at The Traka 360 on her first attempt, she traveled to the US for several more firsts - her first time in the US and her first Unbound Gravel 200. She rode in the front group the first 40 miles or so, but two punctures and riding 78 miles between aid stations with a mechanical made it "a long time trial" for 21st place in the elite women's race.
This year she is no longer the new kid on the block, having finished top five in eight gravel races after the Unbound adventure, with wins at Gravel Suisse and Ranxo Gravel to wrap up the Gravel Earth Series women's overall title.
"This year I managed to get the sponsors [I needed] but also keep working. I think it's good for your heart, mentality, to have something besides cycling. You can be injured, anything can happen, cycling is sport. It's good to have something secure, let's say," she told Cyclingnews.
"Last year I didn't know that the PAS Racing project would be that big. I didn't have a coach. I was working, not having a coach, not having structured training plan. I was riding a bike, it was not racing a bike. So first of all, I work with a coach and have the structured plan."
Migoń added Rose Bikes and Schwalbe Tires as equipment sponsors this season as well and they've carried her to a second win at The Traka 360, as well as second at Wörthersee Gravel and top 10s at The Hills and Santa Vall. She is currently ranked second overall in the Gravel Earth Series. With her new coach, she also began her training well before spring.
"I'm not living high in the mountains. Normally it's sunny and we didn't have much snow this year in the city, so I was able to ride them. If not, then there is Valias, also the mountain part, but it's the sunniest part of Switzerland. Maybe it's not the same as in Spain, but I can still do it fine," she explained about extra training in the off-season.
Ahead of Unbound Gravel, Migoń will take part in Gravel Locos in Texas on May 24, to begin her US swing of a full month. Last year she had to make two trips to the US to complete the rides she wanted to do - SBT GRVL and Gravel Worlds - which cost her vacation time from work.
"I will do Gravel Locos one week before Unbound. I think it's good for a legs opener," she said. "Lost and Found is going to be a nice one and fun. I will finish my block in the US in Steamboat doing SBT. That's a good one. It's earlier this year, normally I would go back home, but this year I just stay for a bigger block in the US."
After the Emporia race she will compete in Lost and Found Gravel Festival in California on June 14 then SBT GRVL in Colorado on June 29. The Lost and Found event is a new competition for the Gravel Earth Series, which Migoń looks for more points to add to The Traka victory for a repeat of the women's overall title. At SBT GRVL last year, which was later in the summer and on a different course, Migoń finished fourth.
Now 29 years old, Migoń's earned experience in her early 20s racing before she was married as Karolina Sowa, with an Polish amateur road team and in mountain biking until 2020 when the global pandemic struck. Then she stopped riding and just focused on full-time work as a software engineer, and cycling took a back seat. The move to Switzerland introduced her to the joy of riding gravel roads, that led to an introduction to PAS Racing which brought her to a new balancing act between two jobs.
"I just started to do my job and cycling as a hobby," the Polish rider told Cyclingnews about her career change five years ago. "Then I moved to Switzerland, discovered gravel, discovered PAS. Then being part of the team was supposed to be like a project, no expectations. I was like, 'I can keep my job, right?' I didn't know that I will travel to the US, and travel almost every weekend, and that it would be a bit more difficult."
This year she hopes to bring home hardware from Unbound, as her PAS Racing teammates Chad Haga and Tobias Mørch Köngstad finished on the men's podium, second and third, respectively.
"While I was disappointed with my own result, I was thrilled for my teammates’ success in such a big race," she said after last year's Kansas battle. "I’m really fortunate to be part of a team where a lot of the stress and logistics are taken care of for us. I’m never alone at races."
