20 Women Belt Buckle Hopefuls to Watch at the 2021 Unbound Gravel Grinder

The annual UGG 200 preview returns with so much talent, we're splitting it into two. First up, the women.

Folks, GRVL is BACK.

After nearly 14 months away, national-level gravel racing is back with the granddaddy of them all, the Unbound Gravel Grinder 200, coming up this weekend in Emporia, Kansas. The bike race formerly known as the Dirty Kanza occupied that precarious spot at the beginning of June—whether it would happen seemed a 50-50 proposition at best earlier this year—but with the availability of the COVID vaccine ahead of schedule, the race was deemed safe enough to run this coming weekend.

While the event was canceled in 2020, the off year did bring a new name for the world’s premier gravel grinder. After founder Jim Cummins was fired following a racist Facebook post in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, race organizers decided to change the name after being unable to reach an agreement with the Kaw Nation to allow the race to continue to use the name “Kanza,” which refers to the tribe.

After several months of public input and internal discussions, the race organizers decided on the name Unbound. LifeTime fitness offered this reasoning for the name change:

“The word unbound most literally means to be free," said Michelle Duffy, director of off-road events marketing for Life Time. "It represents the free-range cattle, wild mustangs and native bison in the prairie of the Flint Hills (Kansas), who move freely and live wild. It's synonymous with our participants who experience a sense of freedom on the gravel roads outside of Emporia, in those moments unbound from anything else.” 

While we respect the name change and the reasoning behind it, typing out Unbound Gravel Grinder over and over is kind of tedious, so in the spirit of expediency, the Bulletin will henceforth be referring to the event as UGG. Sorry, not sorry.

The year 2019 was a big year for the Kansas event, with the fields stronger than ever, including star women racers from across disciplines and Trek-Segafredo and EF Education First sending World-Tour-caliber riders to the men’s field. As probably the biggest bike racing event in America right now, UGG has the ability to change the course of careers for those who survive the 200-mile grind.

In 2019, a new Women’s gravel star was born on the gravel roads north of Emporia. Amity Rockwell of California rode strong and steady to take advantage of a series of flats by Olivia Dillion and take the Women’s crown. Rockwell returns this year, hoping to be crowned the first-ever UGG Queen.

With UGG establishing itself as the biggest bike racing event in America, the social media buzz from those not in Kansas has become part of the event’s allure. In the spirit of making sense of who’s racing this year, the Bulletin is rebooting the Belt Buckle Watch I started at Cyclocross Magazine. In 2019, I got to 38 between the women and men. Let’s see how this one goes, this time split into today’s Women’s Watch and tomorrow’s Men’s Watch.

Before I start, I want to give a shout to my Groadio! co-host Amanda Nauman for her help fine-tuning this list. If you’re wondering why she is not on the list, it is because she is taking on the 350-mile UGG XL that starts on Friday afternoon. I think I speak for the Bulletin community in wishing her the best for the epic task in front of her.

Now, without any further ado, let’s get to the buckle hopefuls.

Amity Rockwell is the defending UGG Queen.

Elite Women’s Buckle Watch

Diving into the Elite Women’s field, it makes sense to start where we left off in 2019 with the top five.

Heading up the list is the reigning UGG Queen, Amity Rockwell. A cross country runner in college, Rockwell’s skill set is suited to longer-distance races—she finished second at the 150-mile Gravel Worlds in 2018 —which is ideal for UGG. Rockwell came on strong in the last 50 miles of the 2019 Kansas race and took advantage of several flats suffered by leader Olivia Dillon to take the title. As the defending champ, Rockwell returns as the woman to beat until someone takes the buckle from her out on the 200-mile course.

The silver medalist in 2019 was 2017 champion Alison Tetrick. The former road pro has found quite the second life as a graveleur, winning in Kansas and also taking wins at races such as Gravel Worlds. Tetrick has a number of other strong results to her name, including a third at the 2018 DK200 and third at Belgian Waffle in 2018. She also finished second at the Gravel Locos in Texas a weekend ago, so she appears to be on good form here in the post-pandemic world.

The third-place finisher was the 2019 Groadie Rookie of the Year Sarah Max of Oregon. Max is not registered for the race this year, and after the year she had in 2019, that likely comes as a sigh of relief for her competitors.

The fourth-place finisher in 2019 was Kae Takeshita. The Japan native who now is a gravel standout in the U.S. has finished fourth at two straight DKs, so she will no doubt be eager to crack that top three. Takeshita also won Barry-Roubaix in Michigan in 2019 and finished second at the then Land Run 100 (now Mid South) that year. Takeshita got her warm-up for UGG by taking on the 340-mile Iowa Wind and Rock, coming in as one of 11 finishers at a total ride time of 33 hours, which is roughly equivalent to 3 UGGS.

Rounding out the 2019 DK200 wide-angle podium was the race’s tough luck woman Olivia Dillon. Dillon was well off the front of the women’s field before being felled by several flats that cost her a shot at the buckle. Dillon has been a standout on the GRVL scene, winning the 2018 Lost and Found and finishing third at the Belgian Waffle Ride in 2019. Dillon returns as perhaps the hungriest rider in the field after coming so close to achieving GRVL immortality in 2019.

The rest of our riders to watch are in no particular order except maybe a general trend toward those with past standout GRVL results. IDK.

Not only is Amy Charity a race organizer of SBT GRVL, she’s also an accomplished GRVL racer herself. Charity has finished just off the DK200 wide-angle podium the last two years, coming in sixth both years. She accomplished the latter sixth-place finish with a torn ACL, living up to the grit the discipline prides itself on. Charity also snagged a bronze at the 2019 LR 100 and took fourth at the Crusher in the Tushar.

Another rider who has had DK200 success is Kaysee Armstrong. The endurance mountain biker finished 5th in 2018 at the famed Kansas race. In 2019, she took 6th in the absolutely loaded SBT GRVL field in Colorado.

The next two riders, well, the Groadio! podcast is going to go ahead and take some credit for their presence in the UGG 200 field this year. Jess Cerra and Rebecca Fahringer went 1-2 in the 2019 Groadie voting for riders we’d most like to see race more GRVL in 2020, err, 2021. Cerra took third at the inaugural Rooted Vermont, and she is off to a strong start in 2021 with a 3rd-place finish at Gravel Locos in Texas.

Most Bulletin readers likely need little introduction to Friend of the Program Rebecca Fahringer. Becky basically crushed the field at the loaded Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder in 2019 and defeated another familiar name in Clara Honsinger at a Gravel race in Oregon earlier this spring. Fahringer is hoping to ride the vlog bump for 200 miles of gravel glory in Kansas this weekend.

There has been some discussion online about Fahringer’s reality with respect to being here and her potential to be BACK, but one rider who definitely has a claim on being BACK is Laura King. King finished second at Belgian Waffle in 2018 but has stepped away from racing after the birth of her daughter Hazel. In the interim, King has helped work as the race director of the Rooted Vermont she started with husband Ted, and she will be one of the riders bringing serious Mom Watts to Kansas next weekend.

It has often been said that you are only as good as your most recent result, and if that is true, Whitney Allison and Moriah Wilson are entering UGG as good bets for success. Allison was a member of the Hagens Berman Supermint professional team, and last weekend she won the Co2uT race in Utah against a field that included 2019 Groadie Rookie of the Year nominee Sarah Sturm.

Wilson was a collegiate nordic skier who now lives in the Bay Area and has been racking up results at West Coast gravel events. Wilson won the Rock Cobbler earlier this year and finished second in the Grasshopper Adventure Series Huffman Hopper race last weekend, beating out another former skier in Katerina Nash and fellow collegiate athlete Amity Rockwell.

Speaking of cross-sport stars, two professional triathletes appear to have seen the proliferation of aero bars in gravel racing and decided the scene was something they definitely need to be a part of. Heather Jackson has five wide-angle podium at the Ironman World Championships and finished as high as 3rd in 2016. Angela Naeth is a Canadian triathlete who has finished as high as 8th at Ironman Worlds and is a 70.3 Ironman podium regular. With their palmares and aero-bar-familiarity, Jackson and Naeth could be riders to watch in the latter stages of the race when things break apart.

A lot of hub was bubbed when WorldTour teams entered the 2019 DK200, but women’s domestic teams have been on the scene longer than their male counterparts. Team Tibco - Silicon Valley Bank teammates Brodie Chapman and Lauren Stephens went 1-2 at the 2019 SBT GRVL. Stephens is doing the UGG 100 this year, so she does not qualify for the Buckle Watch here.

2018 Crusher in the Tushar winner Lauren De Crescenzo will be representing the DNA Cycling team in the field this year, looking to bounce back from a broken collarbone suffered early in the 2019 contest. Team Twenty20 is sending a veritable hit squad, with Shayna Pawless, Jen Luebke, and Natalia Franco all set to take on the UGG challenge.

Australian Tiffany Cromwell of the Canyon-SRAM Women’s WorldTour team is making the trip to Kansas to give the American gravel experience a go. Cromwell did an interview with Cycling News that explained why she and her team are excited about joining the gravel scene this year.

Andrea Dvorak is a former professional racer who finished as high as 2nd at U.S. Road Nationals and was on the 2012 Olympic Long Team. Dvorak, who is now retired, is helping build the NICA program in Virginia while also training to take on UGG this week.

An intriguing entry in this year’s field is new gravel privateer Kathy Pruitt. Pruitt is a former downhill mountain biker who was the 2000 Junior World Champion, who, in recent years, has decided to reboot her career as a gravel racer after some gentle prodding from fellow Canyon athlete Peter Stetina. Pruitt was slated to start her GRVL career in 2020, but a year later, she now has strong Groadie ROY potential.

Those are some of the riders to watch at the UGG 200 this weekend. Will one of the women be crowned the first-ever UGG Queen? I mean, hopefully, so it looks like I know what I am talking about. But more seriously, this year’s field is the most talented yet, but 200 miles of Flint Hills gravel is a tough challenge where riders will need much more than just talent to be successful.

Check back tomorrow for a whole slew of riders to watch in the Men’s UGG 200.