From wild card to Unbound winner: Could Kiwi mountain biker Cam Jones be the first to dethrone Keegan Swenson in the Life Time Grand Prix?

At the start of the 2025 season, Cameron "Cam" Jones was a known rider on the gravel circuit, but only by those who raced him.

Fans were in the dark about the would-be Unbound champion. Yet many of the top professional gravel riders—and the locals in Oregon, Colorado, and Virginia who got to witness the power of the Kiwi first-hand—were on notice.

In Kansas, Jones broke into the mainstream, and the smiling Kiwi is suddenly an undisputed contender to be the first rider to beat Keegan Swenson in the Life Time Grand Prix since the series' inception. While there is lots of racing left, Jones has already done enough to elevate himself from Life Time Grand Prix wildcard contender to a fully fledged professional cyclist.

“I sort of dreamt that I could be up on the podium at a lot of these races at the start of the year, but I’ve gone far beyond any of the expectations I even had,” Jones told Cycling Weekly from his pre-Leadville altitude base in Durango, Colorado.

“The Unbound result gives me so many choices. All my supporters and sponsors came to me saying, ‘What do you want to do,’ rather than, ‘we would like you to do this and that,’ so that was a cool change and a really good thing about this gravel privateer thing.

“It's all up to you. As long as you're having fun, making some cool content, and getting on some good podiums, no one cares exactly what races you do.”

For the most part, Jones is right. When you win Unbound 200, the choice is yours of what you do next. Still, his rising status as one of the sport’s top names—while also being the youngest of the true professionals—means many people care what races he does, especially because he has the power to win many of them.

The gravel world is his oyster

The big question bubbling under the surface since Jones won Unbound and ascended into the Life Time Grand Prix was what the long-term prospects were for someone with his profile. Would he stay with gravel racing beyond 2025, or could road teams try and pry him away from the North American scene?

Nothing was confirmed, but considering Colin Strickland famously drew WorldTour offers after his 2021 Unbound victory, it seemed only logical that Cam Jones might attract similar interest. Unbound has only become faster and more competitive since then, and Jones not only has youth on his side but also a power profile that mirrors many WorldTour athletes. Pack skills are always the question, but power is power, and Jones has buckets of it.

Yet, gravel and road continue to prove to be separate propositions with different draws for different types of riders. For Jones, who prides himself as a mountain biker with a particular set of skills steering a drop bar bike, he is thrilled with where he: a big fish in a growing pond.

“I've had such a good time this year, and I think I'll be more than happy doing the same kind of circuit for years to come,” he said about his future. “That's what I told my supporters that I'm keen on.

“The Grand Prix would be on the plans for next year, and there are so many cool races around that I haven't done yet. I'd like to return to the Oregon Trail, but then there are other races that I’d love to do, and that’s just in the United States.

“This is the kind of racing I want to continue doing, and I'm grateful to have lots of brands and people out there to support me to continue doing it.”

On the surface, this gamble of sustaining a gravel career is hard for some people to wrap their heads around. But for many athletes, gravel is a more viable financial path than mountain bike or road racing.

Jones picked the gravel path because he finds the racing both fun and rewarding, a balance that is harder to find in the ultra-optimised world of pro road cycling.

“Last year, I came over and did all the races on a pretty small budget, and I didn’t know many people,” Jones said of his start in gravel racing last year. “It was certainly more logistically challenging. I didn't have a vehicle, so I was getting around by hitching rides with people or flying, which means all your stuff gets shoved in a bike box.”

While he may have lacked a car, Jones did plenty with a few suitcases, flights, and a bike box in 2024. Week after week, local wins were paired with strong showings at national level races, culminating with SBT GRVL where he looked set for a podium finish before a flat tyre derailed his challenge.

Ultimately, his season was successful enough to attracts decent sponsors and an operating budget for a fully funded go at a gravel calendar in 2025, all while pursuing a graduate degree at Virginia Tech. He was also able to get a car, which, for American gravel racing, is a tool you can’t thrive without. All of it has built the momentum behind his huge level-up this spring.

“The gravel calendar is so spread out that, regardless of whether you’ve got a home base or not,” he said, “You're on the road a lot of the time anyway, so I'm used to that based on last year's US trip and the seasons before that in Europe.

“The longer I race over here, the more people I meet and the support system in the US is just getting bigger and bigger. That allows me to have more places to call home.”

The promise of a Leadville 100 without pressure

While Jones’ gravel future may be settled for now, there’s still the matter of finishing out 2025, starting with the towering altitude and brutal climbs of the Leadville MTB, the next stop in the Life Time Grand Prix.

Of the six events on the LTGP, Leadville may be the only race that doesn’t suit Jones, with both his physique and sea level background better suited for the punchiness of the three final events.

In all likelihood, this is the race Jones can discount at the end of the series, as only five of the six race results will go toward the overall series title. But Jones isn’t thinking this way. Instead, he is plotting ways in which he can bend the race to his strengths, instead of trying to conform to its demands.

“On paper, I know that it's unlikely to be the course that is most suited to me,” he said. “With maybe three weeks at altitude before Leadville, I have no illusions that it's gonna be easy, but also this is my first attempt racing that course and racing at altitude, so I know there's gonna be a lot to learn.

“I'm excited for the challenge and a race that has been around for such a long time. It was like the first American mountain bike race I’d ever heard of. I'm excited for something new, but I don't think I'm gonna be super competitive at this one. There is a good chance it'll be my drop race, but I guess I just have to try and beat my tenth-place points from Sea Otter.”

With the action-packed final month of the season poised to influence the overall standings, the pressure is off Jones. His Unbound win, combined with a slim five-point gap to Swenson, only reinforces the sense that a big result at high altitude isn’t a necessity at this stage.

“There isn’t much point in stressing about where you will finish in the field because it's like racing altitude, and it's such a time trial,” he said. “You’ve got to ride your race, and everyone else is out there doing the same thing, and that way you end up.

“There might be some small choices, like if you go a little bit to make sure you make a group for the flatter section in the middle, but I've heard it's quite straightforward technically.”

On the hot tech topic heading into Leadville—drop bars or flat bars—however, Jones has a rock-solid opinion:

“It’s looking like a mountain bike for [me], none of this dropbar bullsh*t.”