After suffering the hardest fall of his career – and missing the No. 1 Grand Prix stop for life – Payson McElveen has made his return to Kansas.
On March 12, cyclist Payson McElveen fell off his bike, breaking his hand and his collarbone. Doctors told him it would take him 8 weeks to recover. That meant missing the Sea Otter Classic: the first stop in gravel racing Lifetime Grand Prize.
Despite continuing pain from injuries, McElveen showed up on June 4 for the second leg of the tour: UNBOUND Gravel in Emporia, Kan. It’s a notorious entry in the racing series, and McElveen calls it the toughest in a short YouTube documentary about his gravel riding come back.
“I know that moment will come during the race where there will be two voices in your head fighting each other,” he says in the video. “One shouts: ‘Let’s stop, it hurts so much.’ And then there’s the other voice that says, ‘No, you’ve worked so hard to be in this moment. This is where races are won.
Watch the pro fight his way back in this quick edit.
Duration: 4.5 mins
