Welcome to part two of Things Josh Saw At Unbound - otherwise known as the second instalment of what will likely be our biggest gravel tech gallery of the year.
Unbound Gravel is widely accepted as the biggest gravel bike race in the world, despite The Traka nipping at its heels, and as I learned this week, it's fast earning itself a reputation for being the biggest new tech launchpad too.
The tally of new, never-before-seen bikes I found in Emporia this week totals seven. That's four more than we had at the 2024 Dauphine (generally considered the pre-Tour de France proving ground for new bikes), and that's without counting the new Campagnolo groupset we spotted here too.
With over 250 images in my longlist, and around 150 after a brutal cull, I made the decision to split the gallery into two parts.
Part one saw the first of two new Factor bikes, a new Wilier, a new Pinarello, a stunning road bike from No. 22 Bicycle Company that I found in the expo, as well as a handful of cool hacks, some fun stuff, and most importantly, a five week old kitten.
- Check that out here: Unbound 2025 Tech Gallery - Part One
None of the photos in part two are as good as the kitten, I'm afraid, but if you like bike tech I'm hoping you'll stick around, as we've got another new Factor, a new Specialized, an Orbea, the aforementioned Campagnolo groupset, another groupset from TRP and Classified, and about 30 different clever tricks and hacks from the 200 and XL races, and the lemur - I think - that was promised in part one.
If you like what you see, do me a favour and share it with your friends so my bosses let me come back.
I'll follow a similar format to the last one and start with all the new bikes I found in Emporia. This was the second of two Factor bikes here, and it's called the Aluto.
It's the bike that former pro David Millar rode in the Elite Men's 200 race. It's a pared-back lightweight all-rounder, with 47mm tyre clearance and a snappy ride quality. Millar let me take the bike for a test ride, and its flickable handling put me in mind of the Specialized Crux.
Despite the 47mm clearance, Millar had squeezed in a pair of 48mm tyres.
Another new bike on the ground here was courtesy of Orbea. We believe it will be a replacement for the Terra, and this one was ridden by American Morgan Aguirre (Pas Normal).
Like most new bikes here, it looks to have wider tyre clearance, but I'm intrigued by the seat tube. I presume the depth behind the seatpost means they've put the clamp further down to allow some extra flex. Unfortunately the ever-professional Aguirre was tight-lipped about the details.
Here's the head tube, which flows quite neatly into the down tube. Presumably this aids the bike's aerodynamics, but we'll have to wait and see if Orbea has tested it at all.
Aguirre had 50mm tyres fitted here, and the clearance at the front was a little snug.
Speaking of more clearance, that's exactly what Specialized has given its new Diverge. The outgoing model had space for 47mm tyres, but most of the brand's sponsored athletes were running the new 50mm Tracer tyre. The clearance around that here is ample, and it's pretty good at the back too.
This was Alison Tetrick's bike, and I later spoke to Sofia Gomez Villafane about hers, who was kind enough to make me a coffee as we spoke in the Specialized popup shop. Both were coy on the details, and when asked if she could tell me what size tyre it could fit, Villafane simply told me "plenty" and "enough," with the same wry smile her husband Keegan Swenson had when refusing to tell me about his own bike's clever wheel hack.
The other key detail about the new Diverge, aside from the paint job that almost resembles Lightning McQueen (thanks to Joe Laverick for mentioning that, as now it's all I can see), is the fact that Future Shock remains.
Moving on now away from bikes, and onto a new Super Record groupset I spotted from Campagnolo.
It was found on this lovely-looking Basso Palta, ridden by Mattia de Marchi.
It's actually almost entirely the same as the groupset we spotted at the Giro d'Italia three weeks ago.
Except it has this clutched rear derailleur, meaning Campagnolo is soon to bring out a 13-speed, wireless gravel groupset
And most importantly, Campagnolo's long-time fans will undoubtedly rejoice at the return of the thumb shifter.
Elsewhere, we also spotted this groupset from TRP and Classified.
On the face of it, the TRP groupset is a 12-speed one-by groupset, but it has partnered with the two-speed hub system from Classified to create a groupset that offers 16 inline gears. The rider just shifts up or down as if it were a normal 1x groupset and the two systems work in harmony to do the rest. It was first unveiled at Eurobike in 2024, and despite that being almost a year ago, it's not yet available to buy.
Now it's time to step back into the world of clever techy hacks, as there are a lot to get through in this gallery. This one sees a rider having taped a spare TPU inner tube to the back of their head tube. Unbound's sharp flint gravel takes no prisoners, and given the 200-mile course spends plenty of time a good distance from civilisation, it's best to come prepared, in case your tubeless tyres fail to seal.
This rider clearly had something taped behind their head tube too, and used this sticky pad to protect their frame from being scratched by it.
Another one here, with a Co2 taped beneath the top tube. As well as a mud-clearing wooden stick.
Others preferred to tape things to their seatpost. Here's Joe Laverick's Enve MOG with a Dynaplug Racer plug tool.
The other common place was beneath the computer mount, especially for tubeless tyre plugs. We had an example of this in the first gallery courtesy of a Muul mount, but his one's a little simpler, with electrical tape doing the heavy lifting.
Alexey Vermeulen was another taping a plug beneath his computer...
He also had two taped to his seatstays. You can never be too safe, though in the event of a crash we could see this becoming potentially disastrous.
Still with Vermeulen's bike, and although I'm unsure what this material is, it's clearly been added to help keep his water bottles where they should be.
In fact, Vermeulen's bike was loaded with hacks. This one wraps the Di2 cable around the wrong side of his front derailleur, to keep it out of the way of his tyre when running close to the maximum 50mm clearance.
He'd also taped over the mounts on top of his top tube, presumably more of a dirt-ingress preventer rather than an aero trick, since they're fairly hidden from the wind behind the stem.
Presumably a result of a prior chain drop, Vermeulen's bike was sporting some nasty looking scuffs behind the chainset.
He also had a 3D-printed titanium direct-mount derailleur hanger, and a braided sleeve covering his Di2 cable. This is presumably to protect it from damage in the event of an impact from a trailing rider or a crash.
On the opposite side, this one isn't much of a hack but a little tribute to his dog Willie, who famously rides in Vermeulen's backpack on training rides.
To raise money for a development team, Vermeulen was even selling t-shirts and top caps with the design printed on.
He was also auctioning off this Enve bike, which was painted with references to the USA gravel calendar.
Back to some little tricks again, and this one involves a reminder of where the feed stations are, written onto some fabric tape and stuck onto the handlebar.
Quite contrarily, this rider on the XL just packed their water in this enormous 'Crank Tank' inside the frame's front triangle.
I quite liked seeing how the XL riders had chosen to carry their things, and was at first impressed by how this rider had routed a hydration hose to the front of his bike from the bladder stored in the frame bag.
That was until I saw Lachlan Morton's solution, which neatly routed it from his Tailfin rear bag, along the top tube and between his time trial extensions.
In fact, Morton's whole setup was pretty dialled, with an aero handlebar bag and a lightweight, aero pannier rack among the highlights.
He wore a skinsuit and a POC Procen aero helmet too.
He was ultimately beaten by Canadian Rob Britton, whose bike was running a suspension gravel fork from Fox.
Another rider, whose name I didn't get, was running Redshift Shockstop suspension seatpost.
They had suspension up front too, as well as two large bags to house everything they'd need for the 24+ hours on the bike.
This could be the coolest set of frame bags though, found fitted to this tandem ahead of the XL.
Another find ahead of the XL was this rider's time trial extensions loaded up with bagels. I wonder how long they stayed there before being eaten, because the course was muddy and I'm not sure I'd have wanted to leave them out there for long.
As with the bagels above, the XL was all about fuelling, and this rider evidently wanted easy-access gels.
Another problem riders faced on the XL was knowing where to go for supplies. This rider had a neat list of shops along the route.
And the other main issue facing the XL riders, beside the sheer distance of it, was that it took them through the night. Most riders relied on lights with big batteries, but this rider went one step further with a dynamo hub.
Moving back to the 200-mile race, and like we saw in part one, Brendan Johnston had added some notes to the cap of his bottle, denoting his name, which aid station, and presumably how much carbohydrate is inside.
I found this neat tool kit in the expo, courtesy of the Orange Seal stand.
This bike was in the Giant Bikes pop-up. It's a kids' gravel bike, and it caught my eye each time I walked past. On the fourth or fifth time, I decided it had to go into the gallery. I can imagine mums and dads across the world will enjoy this one.
This one also caught my eye, parked outside. I've always liked skinny tubes with deep road wheels, and I think skinny tubes with fat tyres is the gravel equivalent of that.
This Mondraker Arid bike was also spotted at the expo, and although it's not super new, its purple paint and premium build caught my eye.
That bike starts at $2,499, although it'd presumably be a fair bit more than that with this fork and the SRAM Force / X0 Transmission groupset
Brendan Johnston also had some wildlife on his bike, albeit this was just a sticker. The meaning of which I'm sadly not sure.
More expo finds here, and this paint job is courtesy of Colombian brand Scarab. Its steel bikes are widely renowned and their designs unique and colourful.
Here's some more of its work.
And one more!
Frame bags aren't the sexiest of items and many of them are a plain colour, usually black, so I quite appreciated this floral design.
This was also in the expo, albeit rather than being on display, it was mounted to the rear of someone's bike. I think it's a lemur, and I sincerely hope it got washed after Saturday's ride.
I also met the founder of Wove Bike at the expo, who showed me this Mags saddle.
It was fitted to this Open bike, which incidentally was owned by the owner of Hed Bike Wheels, Anne Hed.
The penultimate detail of the gallery, the winner in the women's 100 race, Tiffany Cromwell, had an interesting paint job on her Canyon, which was an homage to her Aussie roots.
These phrases will be new to the majority of our US and European readers. I particularly like 'Fair Dinkum!'
And that marks the end of Unbound 2025 for me.
The 'it's brekky time' phrase on Cromwell's fork leg there is rather apt, since that's next on my agenda. It's currently 6:35am in Chicago, and I write this from a hotel room after missing my connecting flight back to London.
Thank you for reading the past two galleries, and I really hope you've enjoyed all the coverage - both tech and race - that the Cyclingnews team has pulled together for this race. If there's anything you'd like us to do differently or better, please email me.
And just as importantly, thank you for being a Cyclingnews subscriber. Your support allows us to cover these races as thoroughly as they deserve to be covered, and while tech is my role within that, it is just one small part of a much bigger machine. With our first ever Unbound live report alongside the usual results, reports, reactions and news, a huge shoutout must go to my colleagues too.
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