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| Karolina Migon wins the Women's Elite 200 (Image courtesy of Life Time) |
Well, Unbound is over for another year with record-setting results. I went back and read my reactions to last year's Unbound and you know what? I could almost copy and paste the entire article again.
So, instead of rehashing the same ol' stuff again, I decided to look at a few other resources for my take on the event, since the Elite/Pro story is not really all that different. Yes, there were some differences. There was no big sprint finish in the Women's field as Karolina Migon rode everyone off her wheel with around 50 miles to go. There were 20 more women and a few more men in the Elites this time, but the percentages of Elites to "regular folks" was still really lopsided toward the amateurs and the coverage was all about the Elites.
Now, what was interesting was the reaction to what cannot be described as anything but a media blitz on Friday before the event. Folks online were posting a lot of "I'm getting tired of this" sentiments, and while this might be seen as "negative" I read as "fatigue" when it comes to how the cycling media covers this stuff. As one poster opined: "If I see another 'bike check' so help me...." They weren't wrong either as the tech side was hammered on pre-Unbound while true, engaging story lines were largely missing.
The other thing I saw which I found interesting was a post from an Emporia resident who opined concerning how the event had changed since the DK200 days. There was mention of the finish line chute, as they run it now with segregated chutes for Pro/Elite and everyone else, as being something which lessened the experience for this person.
The DK200 used to have a tagline which went something like "Everyone is a Rock Star" which spoke to the experience the early organizers tried to give each and every rider. The common finish line chute, with cheering fans which were there for first place through till the bitter ends of the field, are now more focused on where Unbound places the spotlight. Obviously, a huge focus shift to Elites has taken the shine off the ordinary rider, and it would appear some people are noticing this.
As stated earlier, I am choosing the Gryphon Mk3 for the Tree In The Road Ride coming up later this month. I've been doing a few minor tweaks to the bike. Things like de-racking it and streamlining the set up for this 70 mile group ride. One thing I decided to do was to try the Redshift Sports Cruise Control system on this bike.
This system is already on my Gen I Fargo, so I already know what to expect, and it was one of the reasons the Gen I Fargo was one of the two bikes I considered taking on this ride. Since I had a spare kit sitting on the shelf, I decided to throw it on the Gryphon which has Luxy Bars on it and see what I thought.
The Luxy Bar is an odd-duck of a flared drop bar, but it has a couple characteristics which are being picked up on by cutting-edge flared drop bar makers. The Luxy was never considered as an "aero-advantage" handle bar, but recent developments have shown the Luxy could have been a contender in this category today. I wrote a post about this which you can check out HERE.
With the Gevenalle shifters, I now have a pseudo-aero bar position I can use utilizing the Cruise Control upper portion as a place to rest my forearms.It will be just one more place I can go to and relieve tension and pressure during a longer ride. The lower grips I already know will be a boon to avoiding numb hands.
