Gravel biker Rosa Maria Klöser: A portrait of the winner of the Unbound 200 gravel race

As Rosa Klöser turns onto the 450 metre long finishing straight in Emporia, Kansas, she feels remarkable clarity in her head. "I was unusually calm. Normally I'm more of a lively type, but at that moment I was very deliberate," she reports. The German-born, 27-year-old rider, whose name hardly anyone here knows, has analysed the home straight in detail and studied the interests of the group with which she is racing to the finish of the 200 miles of the Unbound Gravel.

On the left of the nine-strong leading group, American competitor Paige Onweller starts her push - Rosa Klöser then starts her sprint. "I thought we were already closer to the finish," she remembers and starts her sprint 300 metres before the finish line. She simply pulls it off. "You can feel if someone is behind you, and in the last 100 metres I realised that no one was there."

Unbound Gravel 200 and Rosa Maria Klöser

Klöser sprints to the finish line with a lead of several bike lengths. With her mouth wide open, she has an emotional breakdown in the finish area: she hugs her boyfriend, who has just finished the men's race himself. She is overwhelmed, tears streaming down her face. Coming out of nowhere, she has not only overcome a major setback in the race, but has also won the most prestigious race on the gravel scene.

Half a day earlier, just before 6 o'clock in the morning, Klöser felt really overwhelmed for the first time. "There must have been 100 photographers in front of the start line, it was a real media hype," she says. "I thought, this event - it can really change your life." Hardly anyone in the scene or in the media knows the young German, whose place of residence is Copenhagen. She places herself between the elite starters, who have been given their own women's start time in Kansas in order to have a real women's race without the distorting effect of the men in front and behind.

Prominent names at the start of the gravel race

While big names are called out - Tiffany Cromwell, Sofia Gomez Villafane, Haley Smith and last year's winner Carolin Schiff in the German champion's jersey - Rosa Maria Klöser remembers that she had only just tried out a few gravel races in 2023. And just one year earlier, at the beginning of 2022, the young woman with the long, dark brown hair had never taken part in a bike race.

Rosa Maria Klöser's career is taking off. Born in Übach-Palenberg near Aachen, she studied in the Netherlands and Denmark. On a Monday in July, she is relaxing at her boyfriend's parents' house on the edge of the Lüneburg Heath. She normally researches and teaches in Copenhagen, attends conferences in Dublin, spends four months at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and is now experiencing an impressive rise in cycling. This is the story of a woman who achieves top marks in economics studies, lectures on political intervention in markets and puts experienced road professionals in their place. "I don't know her," says a top female gravel rider, even though they have raced against each other several times. A story that is still possible in women's cycling.

Rosa Maria Klöser - about the person

Rosa Maria Klöser was born on 24 June 1996 in Geilenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia. She began cycling with her partner Paul Sandmann while studying for her doctorate at Copenhagen Business School.

In her first gravel season, Klöser took third place three times in races organised by the UCI and finished 28th at the 2023 World Championships in Italy. In 2024, she took third place at the Traka 200 in Spain, second place at 3RIDES in Aachen and won the Unbound 200 in the USA. In June, she took part in the German Road Championships for the first time and finished ninth.

Ascent with bruises

What sounds like a smooth ascent was not without obstacles in practice. Sometimes a bike was lost, sometimes there were bloody accidents. But that doesn't put them off. Even painful experiences don't hold her back. She perseveres and admits that she is perhaps a little more brash than others. In the short time she has spent in the saddle, she has already collected a few scars. The weekend before this interview, she underestimated a piece of grass during a race in Poland, injuring her leg and elbow and denting her helmet. On the road, she broke her collarbone and in her first big gravel race, the Traka in the Pyrenees, she reached the finish without a saddle. But she came through.

Klöser is determined and knows how to deal with setbacks. She proved this impressively at the Unbound Gravel. After establishing herself in the leading group, she made a riding mistake in Kansas. She recalled that she rode too close to the woman in front and missed a stone after around 200 kilometres - a disaster for her front tyre, which was torn in several places. Thanks to her good preparation, Klöser had inserts in her tyres to protect the rim in the event of a puncture. This allowed her to stay in the leading group at first. "It was really spongy, especially downhill on stones, I kept hitting the rim, it was scary," she says.

On a climb, Klöser decided to try again with air from a cartridge. Repairing the tyre was out of the question, as sealant was leaking in several places. As a result, she lost two minutes to the front of the field by the next refreshment point. However, a lightning-fast tyre change by her outfitter enabled her to return to the race.

Then I set off and knew I had nothing to lose. I was proud to have been in this leading group before and thought: no matter what happens now, you've shown the world.

"But the real reason I bought a racing bike was because my bike was stolen"

Such experiences would have been unimaginable for Rosa Maria Klöser four years ago. At the time, her boyfriend was already studying in London while she was in Copenhagen for her economics degree. Due to the coronavirus lockdown, they were looking for a place to spend time together. Paul Sandmann's parents live in Lower Saxony, south-east of Hamburg, and the couple settled down there. Rosa had her first experience on a much too large racing bike with a 61 mm frame that belonged to her boyfriend's father. She immediately took a liking to racing bikes. "The real reason why I bought a racing bike, however, was a bike theft," says Klöser.

Her city bike was stolen in Copenhagen and she took a leaf out of the book of the many commuters who travelled there on racing bikes. So she looked for an entry-level bike that cost 1,200 euros. "That seemed insanely expensive to me," she says. She soon realised on rides in Copenhagen that this sport is "capital-intensive", as she calls it. What followed was a crash course in a sport that others had been practising since their teenage years. She installed Strava and chased the best times. She also bought a smart roller and started training indoors. At the beginning of 2021, she took part in her first Zwift race from her student room in Copenhagen. "I'd never raced with other women before. There were only five or six participants - but I won. And when I'm successful, it's even more fun, of course."

In Copenhagen, she turned to a cycling club and found orientation there by riding in a group. She then took part in her first road race in 2022. In her first appearance in the B category, she immediately took victory. "I was completely surprised because I had no idea about race strategy and tactics," she recalls. In late summer of the same year, she and her boyfriend Paul took part in the Cyclassics in Hamburg. She won the women's category on the 94.8-kilometre course and came 18th overall. "You have a lot of slipstream there. If you ride a bit smart, you can save a lot of energy," she explains, making her impressive success easy to understand.

Klöser's passion is optimisation

As Rosa Klöser says herself, she loves to get to grips with topics, and she shares this with her boyfriend Paul. He is studying for a doctorate in mechanical engineering at Imperial College and has the choice of pursuing his career in science or in a company. He also only took up sport at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and is now achieving excellent results in elite gravel races. Between research and sport, he hardly has time for anything else. Klöser studies the sport with the same dedication with which she approaches her academic and professional subjects. She watches many races, including the Tour de France, to learn from the riders' behaviour and gathers information on equipment and carbohydrate complexes. She optimises her performance with great care and observation. Together with Paul, she works on her riding position and analyses her watts. "Rosa still has a lot of room for improvement," says her boyfriend. In the coming months, they want to work on the rider's aerodynamics, including wind tunnel tests.

My passion is working with students, giving lectures and supervising Master's theses.

Perfectionism plays a major role in Rosa Klöser's life and extends to many areas. When the two of them see our photographer's equipment, they ask a lot of questions because - as part of being an athlete in the influencer age - they want to equip themselves with high-quality cameras. The fact that Klöser rides gravel at all was a coincidence. In spring 2022, on a trip to Girona, she had problems with the gears on her now considerably more expensive aero bike. Rosa and Paul went to a workshop and met the Dutch gravel pro Piotr Havik. He invited them on a gravel tour and was impressed by Rosa's talent. Klöser remembers his words: "Maybe you should think about becoming a gravel pro."

A year later, Klöser started her first season on gravel. She made it onto the podium in three UCI races and was only beaten by cycling legends Marianne Vos and Annika Langvad in Halmstad, Sweden. "A few brands contacted me and said they thought it was cool what I was doing." One season later, Klöser has made significant progress. She is something of a sole trader in the gravel sport, has well-known outfitters and can fully engage in this life - especially in the summer. Her university in Denmark has given her a month's leave of absence so that she can concentrate on the gravel events during the intensive phase without having to think about her academic commitments. Because normally that is the centre of her life. Klöser has successfully navigated her way through the university landscape and is doing her doctorate on the decarbonisation of the shipping industry. In particular, she is investigating how political intervention in the economy can lead to greater sustainability and more environmentally friendly corporate structures.

She had previously completed her Master's degree in Supply Chain Management. In conversation, she quickly switches to this other topic and, if given the opportunity, could spontaneously give a lecture on it. It would be just as exciting as talking about sport. She particularly likes what she gets to do as part of her doctoral position: "My passion is working with students, giving lectures and supervising Master's theses," says Klöser.

Sport and promotion - two worlds

Rosa Klöser moves between two worlds. But her boyfriend's parents in northern Germany are currently focussing on her sporting career. She is enjoying her new-found fame and using it for further sponsorship talks and negotiations for next year. She also made her mark at the German Road Championships, finishing ninth among the World Tour pros. For her, road cycling is just as much a project for the future as her career in economics. "Yes, definitely," she replies when asked whether she is currently living her dream. "I didn't follow a classic path, I didn't think as a little girl that I could become a professional athlete - but in everything I do, I'm always totally focussed on the cause."

She should have her doctorate in her pocket by the beginning of 2025. She is very enthusiastic about her research topic, which is good for the time after that. People now know her name in cycling, which is beneficial because she definitely wants to focus on this part of her life for a few seasons. "It's an excellent structure for my career."