Lauren Stephens (Cynisca Cycling) takes multi-tasking to a new level, again. As the US gravel national champion, she made an early commitment to focus on the road this year to earn qualification for the Paris Olympic Games. While an automatic spot had not materialised, her results sheet continued to burst from road, and gravel, races.
A change of plans in late May allowed her to travel from Brazil to Kansas for Unbound Gravel last week, though not for the 200-mile race as one of the five required event as a Life Time Grand Prix competitor. She downsized to the women’s 100-mile event and it paid dividends with her third victory at that distance.
She’s not done with heavy travel just yet, as one day after winning Unbound 100 she headed to Spain to take part at the UCI 2.1 Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Femenina from June 7-9.
“It was a last minute deal. We decided at Nationals that I was gonna do the 100, and I’ll head to Barcelona on Monday to do Volta Catalunya next weekend. So the 200 didn’t really make sense with flying on Monday,” Stephens told Cyclingnews at the finish as she collected the Unbound 100 win, good for ninth overall.
Unlike the Unbound Gravel 200 where the pro women were provided their own start, the Unbound 100 competitors had a traditional mass start last Saturday. Stephens rode the first 20 miles at the front of the race with a large group of men and just a handful of nine elite women in the mix, including Flavia Oliveira Parks (Specialized) and Laura King (Cannondale).
By the halfway mark, Stephens was the only woman remaining at the front of the race and rode third wheel overall. She eventually lost contact with the front group, but she managed to stay with a group of men, including husband Mat Stephens, and extend her lead to win over runner-up Parks and third-placed King.
“Flavia was still there before the creek crossing, I think we lost her somewhere around that creek crossing. It was nice to see some of the women up there in the beginning mixing it up,” she recalled about the race before the check point at mile 54.
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“Unfortunately I had to stop and put air in my tire at 100k (40 miles to go), it was in a headwind on the road section. It seemed like the group was going slow and then that enticed someone to attack. So I didn’t make it back to the front group. We ended up with a nice group of five or six who worked all together.”
She remained at the finish line area in Emporia to watch the pro men and pro women finish Unbound 200, where she congratulated 200 runner-up Geerike Schreurs (Team SD Worx-Protime). The two were part of Cylance Pro Cycling in 2018, that year Stephens taking second in the Pan American ITT and Schreurs was her soigneur.
Two years ago Stephens circled the globe with three different world championship races in a span of 21 days. She rode to 29th place at the Mountain Bike Marathon Worlds in Denmark, then competed in the road race at UCI Road Worlds in Wollongong, Australia the next week (where she did not finish due to sickness), and returned to Europe to compete in the UCI Gravel World Championships, where she was the best-placed US woman in sixth place.
This year she added more frequent flyer miles with the travel between her home in Texas to West Virginia, Brazil, Kansas and Spain across three weeks. Even giant storms in Texas could not derail her decision to return to Emporia for Unbound.
“So I raced the road race on a Sunday at Nationals [in West Virginia on May 19], took a flight to Brazil, got there Monday morning, raced the time trial Tuesday. Then had some nice days to train with Amber Neben and Shayna [Powless] and Maeghan [Easler],” she recalled. “Then we had the road race on Saturday, and it ended up being a field sprint, and I was confident in my sprint, and I succeeded in that.
“Storms hit Dallas Tuesday morning [before Unbound], so we lost power. Our power came on Thursday, an hour before we left to come up here [to Kansas]. We were getting ready in the dark. So it’s been a hectic week,” she said with a laugh.
This year as part of the Life Time Grand Prix invitation-only field, Stephens decided earlier in the spring that she could not make Unbound Gravel 200 part of her schedule, to eliminate some wear and tear on her mind and body. She now must race the remaining five Grand Prix events to still be eligible for the season-ending prize purse, as she did not race Fuego XL and Unbound 200.
US Road Nationals became her priority to earn the one spot remaining for USA Cycling’s automatic qualification for the Paris Olympics road team, which went to Taylor Knibb (Trek Factory Racing) who won the ITT championship.
Stephens has banked top road results since February – a win at Clasica de Almeria, a stage win at Tour de Normandie, GC at the Tour of the Gila and second overall at the inaugural Growler one-day race at Levi’s Gran Fondo. The Pan Am road champion will use her resume for one final chance.
“You know, we can still submit a petition, those go in June 11, and they’ll make the final announcements a couple days after that. So for sure, I’ll write my petition. And you know, it’s never over till it’s over,” she told Cyclingnews.
She said after the three-day Spanish stage race with Cynisca and submitting her appeal to USA Cycling, she will finally take time off in mid-June, probably mountain biking in Colorado.