2025 Gravel Worlds, Nice. The ultimate qualification thread

Racing
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Thread to discuss qualification for the 2025 gravel worlds, Nice, France.

Training, targeted races, fitness requirements, etc.

The women elite race will be on Friday 17th October 2025 while the men elite have their race on Saturday 18th October (TBC) 2025.
Amateur and masters’ riders can race together with the pros. They start in later waves as they battle it out for a world title in their respective age groups. Women age groups and men over 50 race on Saturday while men of the age groups 19 to 49 start behind the men elite on Sunday.
All 2025 qualifier events can be found here Calendar - UCI Gravel World Series

Female (open) route rumour: 92.2km, 1994M vert.
Male (elite) route rumour: 138.6km, 3376 vert.

Qualifiers:
https://ucigravelworldseries.com/en/calendar/

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Hard to discuss targeted races because they haven’t announced the qualifiers yet. :man_shrugging:

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The thread can live through those announcements.

There are already a few in 2024, including the European champs.

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Highlands Gravel Classic is a (the?) US qualifier. April 26, 2025, in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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I’m hoping the Blue Mountains Gravel Fondo (Ontario, Canada) is on and remains a qualifying event next year.

*Edited because UCI site lists June 21 2025 as the date, but there’s no updated info on BMGF site.

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There’s a list here : 2025 UCI GRAVEL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFYING EVENTS AND DATES – GRAN FONDO DAILY

Not sure if it’s accurate - no Blue Mountains listed yet (and I was hoping for Millau)

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The UCI said in a post today that the full 2025 calendar will be announced next week.

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Full calendar available on the gravel world series website:

Calendar - UCI Gravel World Series

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Welp…so much for adding more US races.

UCI gonna UCI, I guess…

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Also, the list says Bolero European Gravel Championships in Leuven, Belgium. But the European championships are suppposed to be in Houffalize (also Belgium)

So the list might still be a work in progress. Cause there are no official communications yet.

But having only 1 qualifier in the US is kinda stupid, and that’s coming from a European.

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Been that way since Day 1. :man_shrugging:t2:

Earlier this month, Verveken indicated there could be as many as 4 US qualifiers, so we’ll see if any additional races get announced. Seems odd to announce a not-finalized calendar.

Also seems odd to publish a calendar without any official announcement, but likfe I said, the UCI is gonna UCI.

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Maybe the intern accidentally pushed the site to live servers :sweat_smile:

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My guess is there’s a lack of interest from US promoters. I doubt the UCI is easy to work with, and the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

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Here’s the document given to potential host cities for the world champs. It’s an interesting read.

https://assets.ctfassets.net/761l7gh5x5an/1yrrJUw8wtHXOlvLQLXBrG/f7de47cdfec2adbd58cadab6d097e9b1/2022_UCI_MTB_GRAVEL_WCH_BID-GUIDE_2028-29-30_v2.pdf

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The list is not correct at all three days for some of the races are wrong, so I expect a different version to be uploaded.

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As I said, the UCI will release the official calendar next week (info from their FB post). The one on the website changes daily. A few days ago, at one point there were about 40 races there. A lot of new places.

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I love that the first page is Dave’s big smiling visage!

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It seems odd that the USA Cycling Gravel Nationals is not listed as a qualifier event for the UCI Gravel Worlds, is it not? Somebody let me know if I’m missing something.

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The UCI doesn’t put on races. They work with local event organizers that petition the UCI to give them world series status.

The main issue you face is that almost no event organizer will put on sanctioned gravel races in the US.

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Yes, I am aware. As noted in my subsequent post, Vervecken indicated that organizers in the US were interested and that there would be more US races.

“They see that our events, especially the World Championships, are gaining a lot of prestige. You see the start lists growing and everybody wants to be part of that race so I think that has helped us a lot,” said Vervecken, who outlined that there were expected to be three UCI Gravel World Series events in the United States in 2025, with a fourth also having pursued a slot.