Changes coming…
4/11 Sea Otter Classic GRAVEL
5/31 Unbound Gravel
8/9 Leadville 100 MTB
9/12 Chequamegon MTB
10/12 Little Sugar MTB
10/19 Big Sugar Gravel
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Half gravel, half mtb. And real mtb at that, none of this drop bar stuff at Little Sugar. This I like.
Sea Otter will be little CX, gravel, road and MTB all in one! 
Interesting. Not surprised to see the Rad dropped and Little sugar added, but surprised to see Crusher go away. The back to back weekends with MTB/Gravel in Bentonville is going to make a crazy week even crazier.
BTW, the date for Unbound next year is 5/31, not 5/21. Big gap still between sea otter and unbound and now unbound and leadville with crusher dropped.
Thanks. Fixed.
crap I did early bird registration for Sea Otter Fuego XL thinking that would be the Grand Prix event (wanna get a LT100 coin). Just e-mailed them to swap my registration though I do recall agreeing to some terms that there are no refunds…
No need. Fuego XL is still an LT100 Qualifier. But now it’s like Tahoe Trail, Austin Rattler, Lutsen 99er in that it’s not a LT GP event.
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Curious to hear why. Me personally, a) I like the event a lot (did it twice, planning to come back next year). b) I’m kinda glad it’s not an LTGP event anymore (as long as it keeps happening, of course). But why would they drop it?
Seems alot of the GP riders complain about having x3 races at elevation. Takes time and $$$ to acclimatize and they don’t like it.
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As someone who lives at 7K feet I probably have no rights to judge them 
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Nothing negative about the event (I’ve never done it), but adding little sugar was inevitable and they weren’t going to keep both with the dates so close together. Bentonville has become a big base for Lifetime events and it’s arguably turning into the epicenter for offroad cycling in the US.
The back to back weekend thing with different disciplines is also a really interesting way to end the series.
I was already going to be in Bentonville all next week prior to Big Sugar and there are a few things going on, but I bet they really ramp that week up next year when you have 2 GP events bookending the week.
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Velonews confirms, also rider spots only 25 men and women. And a wildcard ride in spot for the last 3.
"The biggest twist to the 2025 series is that only 22 men and 22 women will be selected for the initial series roster on Thursday, November 7. The remaining three spots for both men and women are considered wild cards and will not be confirmed until after Unbound Gravel on May 31.
To be selected as a wild card, athletes must have applied for the 2025 series, indicated they want to be included in the wild card pool, and have competed at both the Sea Otter Classic gravel race and Unbound.
Wild card riders will be scored on their performances at those two events, with the top three men and women then added to the 2025 Life Time Grand Prix series roster."
https://velo.outsideonline.com/gravel/gravel-racing/2025-life-time-grand-prix-series/
Certainly no offense, just curious. I get there’s some history, and maybe I’m just out of touch, but why is Chequamegon a mountain bike race, especially a LTGP event? From the looks of it, it seems if Leadville and others could be done on drop bar hardtails, Cheq definitely could be. Maybe it’s rougher than it looks…?
The wildcard is an interesting idea with a couple issues. First, those first two events are both gravel now with Sea Otter being switched to the gravel race. So obviously, that favors a certain type of rider. Not a huge deal but something. Then more importantly, racers have to plan their season ahead of time. I could totally see the wildcard riders getting in and then skipping half the events because they already had plans. To me, the biggest problem the GP has right now is getting the people in it to actually show up to all the events. It seems like there are only a few riders of each gender that take it absolutely seriously right now.
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I get what you are saying, but don’t know why you would go to all the trouble to try and get in as a wildcard, and then once you do, skip the remaining races. You are going to have to build some flexibility in your plan. These are most likely privateer types who don’t have a locked down schedule for the entire year. I would think a wildcard entry is going to be looking long term, and using their entry to get into LifeTime automatically in the following year and get more sponsor support as a result.
The back to back weekends makes sense for international travel. Also, love the wildcard for people that want to race the series, but didn’t get picked initially. #Dillman.
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With the format allowing 2 drop races, lifetime clearly isn’t prioritizing “every rider at every race”. But looking at the 2024 standings, it looks like there are only a handful not doing most of the events (especially considering they have 2 drop races, injuries, etc.).
They are still allowing 2 drops with only 6 races?
Pretty weak, IMO….just means you can opt out of the hardest race (Leadville) and still have a throwaway result.
The top riders are so consistent over the series that they need to limit the ability to throw away bad results if they want the overall to be more competitive, IMO.
ETA - I misunderstood the above post. I see now there is only 1 drop race for 2025.
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Only having one drop race next year will help. Maybe they need to work on incentives so that people don’t mind missing events? Payouts at every event would help rather than the random payouts at some and none at others making racers only care about the season series.
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Yep, agreed. I think they should give some baseline points just for showing up. With the current format, it’s probably smarter to skip at least one race and put that energy into the other races (at least from a pure results standpoint, sponsorship dynamics might say otherwise). The drop race should primarily be there to account for a bad day, not a day that you didn’t show up. On the flip side, injuries happen and it’s nice that they can skip a race and still be in the hunt.