Swiss rider Robin Gemperle dominated the Unbound XL race, finishing the 356-mile (573km) gravel race in 21 hours, 20 minutes, and five seconds.
Gemperle finished 34:17 ahead of Sidhartha Mathai, with Ricardo Morante coming in third ahead of Max Agut of France.
The women's race was won for a second time by German Svenja Betz, who finished in 27:11:32. She was a little more than 34 minutes ahead of runner-up Maddie Nutt of Great Britain. In early May, Nutt scored the victory at The Traka Adventure, the 560km overnight race which Betz won in the inaugural year of the race in 2025.
It was then Larissa Connors who took third, coming over the line a little under two hours after Betz, while Ivy Pedersen was then just 28 seconds further back in fourth.
Early in the race, Gemperle revealed to the live broadcast interviewer that he feared he might have to drop out after getting sick 180 kilometres into the race, and after getting going, he had to walk around 21 kilometres because of deep mud and rain.
"After 180km, I was like, this is never going to work out, so mentally it was super tough. I kind of had issues with my stomach," he said.
"I thought I wanted to like save a lot of drinks at the beginning so I don't have to stop early, but then we decided together that we will stop early, which made me drink everything that I had left within 20 ks, which is incredibly stupid, and resulted in me puking."
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Last year, Gemperle set the record on the Tour Divide, a much longer race between Canada and the Mexican border of the USA, and was happy to get the Unbound XL victory so he can get back to 'ultra' endurance races.
"The more often you do this kind of stuff, the further away you get from doing it again, so I do have kind of a focus on these shorter ultras for this year," he said.
"I'm just super happy that it worked out now with one win, because I don't want to do this another five years. I want to go back to really long ones, which is where I feel super comfortable. So, yeah, it's good I've made it work."
Maddy Nutt recovers after 27-hour-plus ride to second place at 2026 Unbound Gravel XL (Image credit: Life Time)
Nutt said every weather condition was thrown at riders during the epic ride, from thunderstorms with lighting to hail to wind and then sunshine with high humidity.
"At 10-and-a-half hours I was halfway through and I was brilliant. I rode really strong at the start, and then as soon as we hit the mud, I was... that hiking really took power of me at about 130km," Nutt recounted.
"Then we hit what could only be described as hell. It [the mud] just didn't end. We had a mid feed, and then we didn't have the next feed for the nine hours because of the hiking, so everyone was dying, four or five hours of hiking.
"I am as happy as I can be now. I didn't feel amazing on the bike though."
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Jackie has been involved in professional sports for more than 30 years in news reporting, sports marketing and public relations. She founded Peloton Sports in 1998, a sports marketing and public relations agency, which managed projects for Tour de Georgia, Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and USA Cycling. She also founded Bike Alpharetta Inc, a Georgia non-profit to promote safe cycling. She is proud to have worked in professional baseball for six years - from selling advertising to pulling the tarp for several minor league teams. On the bike, she has climbed l'Alpe d'Huez three times (not fast), and spends time on gravel around horse farms in north Georgia.
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