Gravel and off-road racing confirmed no indicators of easing from a meteoric rise in reputation in 2025. Excessive-profile races throughout mud, rocks, sand and soil in Europe and North America featured deep fields among the many elite riders, whereas amateurs continued to grind by means of scenic landscapes and epic private journeys of greater than 100 occasions across the globe, a quantity that may be a modest estimate.
Occasions at Unbound Gravel and The Traka continued to reign supreme because the ‘monuments’ of off-road racing, with Karolina Migoń etching a brand new degree of success with wins at each The Traka 360 and Life Time Unbound Gravel 200. At The Traka 200, each Mads Würtz Schmidt and Sofia Gomez Villafañe received on inaugural appearances on the Girona race. New Zealander Cameron Jones made Kansas really feel like dwelling with a signature solo victory within the elite males’s race at Unbound 200.
Two of the richest off-road collection, Life Time Grand Prix and Gravel Earth Sequence, earned headlines, with Villafañe successful the Grand Prix a 3rd time and Jones utilizing his Unbound victory to earn a wildcard entry within the collection after which successful the general within the sixth and ultimate race. Former Unbound Gravel 200 champion Rosa Klöser went on a tear with eight victories, half of these within the Gravel Earth Sequence for the general title.
Kate Courtney
- 2025 group – She Sends Racing
- 2025 key outcomes – wins at Leadville Path 100 MTB and UCI Mountain Bike World Championship in Cross-country Marathon, silver medals at Pan-American MTB Championships in XCC and XCO
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “It’s simply such a loopy picture as a result of you may see my flat tire and it’s in all probability six miles from the end. What an journey,” she instructed Cyclingnews about successful Marathon MTB World title in Switzerland on a flat tyre.
Former mountain bike world champion Kate Courtney had wrist surgical procedure in Might following a crash at a World Cup spherical in Nové Město. She rested and regrouped at dwelling in California, and took benefit of an prolonged keep at dwelling in California to offer it a go at Leadville Stage Race after which Leadville Path 100 MTB. She completed second within the stage race and set a brand new course report to win the 100-miler.
The Leadville 100 efficiency turned a driving pressure to return to Europe for MTB World Cups and Marathon World Championships. She defined in her Substack article why her second victory in Switzerland was so particular and surprising:
‘One step at a time.’ In 2018, as I rode the ultimate descent of the UCI Cross Nation World Championships in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, I repeated these phrases to myself time and again. I began the race as an underdog – a first-year elite who had by no means stood on a World Cup podium, not to mention contended for a World Championship win.
However the results of a motorcycle race isn’t predetermined, and that uncertainty, I instructed myself, might be my alternative. I crossed the end line to convey a rainbow jersey dwelling to the USA for the primary time within the XCO self-discipline in virtually twenty years.
Seven years later, these phrases returned to me. Once more, I discovered myself in Switzerland. And once more, I used to be main the ultimate descent of a World Championship, now within the marathon self-discipline. Besides this time, I had a flat tire.
Once I reached the highest of the final little climb on the course, there was nobody in sight. I crested the climb, hopped on my bike and commenced my descent into the mountains with tears in my eyes. Round a nook, my rear tire felt mushy beneath me. “I’m sorry,” shouted the cameraman [riding an e-bike] behind me, “however you might be flat.”
And that’s when acquainted phrases entered my thoughts. One step at a time. I may win. Or I may flat. Ultimately, I did each.
That’s the fact of chasing huge goals. The facility isn’t in controlling the end result, however in selecting to step ahead anyway. To maintain going, irrespective of the circumstances. – Kate Courtney
Mads Würtz Schmidt
- 2025 group – PAS Racing
- 2025 key outcomes – winner at The Traka 200, Monaco Gravel Race, Turnhout Gravel, Blaavands Huk, Houffa Gravel and European Gravel Championships
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “I’ve chosen this image from The Traka. I do know it’s simple to select a photograph the place you win a race. But it surely was a really emotional victory.”
Earlier than turning 31 years of age final March, Mads Würtz Schmidt moved from a 14-year street profession, with of these seasons on the WorldTour degree, to a brand new profession on gravel. He instructed Cyclingnews that it was a one-year trial, one which was exterior his consolation zone, each bodily and financially.
How did he do? The Dane would win 4 UCI Gravel World Sequence races, The Traka 200 and shut out his time on the rostrum with the European Gravel Championships title. It was The Traka 200, which he stated solidified his place on gravel:
I made the shift to gravel very late and hadn’t proved myself as gravel rider. So it was a threat to race on gravel.
The main factor this 12 months was monetary. It’s been a 12 months that has value me cash. So this 12 months was a one-shot alternative. If I didn’t succeed, I’d have needed to finish my profession as a bike owner.
That’s why The Traka was essential to me. This was my first probability to essentially show myself and present that I belong in skilled biking. I had a really profitable 2025, and it began with The Traka. With my Traka win, loads of doorways opened, and I’ve prolonged my profession as knowledgeable bike owner.
The Traka means all the things to me. – Mads Würtz Schmidt
Karolina Migoń
- 2025 group – PAS Racing
- 2025 key outcomes – winner at The Traka 350, Unbound Gravel 200, Gravel Locos, Misplaced and Discovered, runner-up Wörthersee Gravel, Gravel Race Bern, third at Lauf Gravel Worlds and 66 Degres Sud-Le Gravel
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “I selected this picture as a result of it captures the precise second all the things hit me [to win Unbound Gravel 200].”
Karolina Migoń had a stellar 2024, successful The Traka 360 and Ranxo Gravel, however she poured on the success in 2025, incomes prime 10s in 13 of 14 off-road races. Amongst her prime outcomes had been a defence of her title at The Traka 360, and a string of three consecutive victories within the US – Gravel Locos, Unbound Gravel 200 and Misplaced and Discovered.
Profitable the 2 greatest gravel races on the planet – The Traka 360 and Unbound Gravel 200 – in the identical 12 months was a monumental achievement. And it was a goal for the 29-year-old Polish racer. Nonetheless, she did not plan to make use of a 50-mile solo effort to assert the win in Kansas, saying after the race, “I didn’t know if I used to be silly or a genius. I didn’t know if I’d make it to the end, I’d say, till the final 5km.” She completed 8:35 forward of her teammate, Cecily Decker, for the solo win:
The feelings, the disbelief, the exhaustion after 10 hours of racing. I’m nonetheless lined in mud. Earlier than I even had time to course of it, the questions began. It reveals the uncooked transition from pure effort to one thing greater than the race itself. – Karolina Migoń
Cameron Jones
- 2025 group – Scott-Shimano
- 2025 key outcomes – winner at Unbound Gravel 200, 5 podiums and first total at Oregon Path Gravel, third at Lauf Gravel Worlds
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “Huge Sugar.”
From wildcard to total winner, that sums up the 2025 season for New Zealander Cameron Jones. At 24 years outdated to begin the season, he focused prime outcomes on the first two US rounds of the Life Time Grand Prix, Sea Otter Traditional and Unbound Gravel 200, with the intention to declare one in every of three elite males’s wildcard berths for the cash-rich collection.
First, he scored a dominant victory at Unbound, which gave him a berth within the Grand Prix. Then he went on to win one other spherical at Little Sugar MTB and set the stage for the ultimate showdown at Huge Sugar, the place he simply needed to outdistance defending collection champion Keegan Swenson, and contenders Pellaud and Torbjørn Andre Røed, to win the highest prize, and together with {that a} assured entry into the sphere for 2026.
“The folks that had been up there within the entrance weren’t going to beat me within the collection. And so, I simply needed to concern myself with the individuals who may, and attempt to make their life as arduous as doable,” Jones stated after his fifth-place end at Huge Sugar. Fifth place was by no means celebrated so wildly, because it gave him the Grand Prix title. Jones let photographer Wil Matthews describe his favorite picture from 2025, since he isn’t even in focus:
This 12 months’s Life Time Grand Prix completed with a tantalizing ‘Winner takes all’ battle between 4 riders. After a chaotic, shortened Huge Sugar Gravel [down from 100 miles to 54 due to storms], the general title got here all the way down to a 25-man bunch dash on the principle avenue of Bentonville. This picture reveals Cameron with a lot of a niche he escaped focus, with the opposite three contenders (Pellaud, Røed and Swenson) watching the $20,000 prime prize sprinting up the street. – Wil Matthews
Heather Jackson
- 2025 group – Herbalife/Canyon
- 2025 key outcomes – winner Unbound Gravel XL, fourth The Traka 360
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “Positively Unbound XL”
Heather Jackson amassed six Ironman wins and 16 Ironman 70.3 wins throughout 15 years, then turned a standout performer with simply the bike in gravel racing. After wins at Belgian Waffle Journey California and Stetina’s Paydirt in 2023, she raced Unbound Gravel 200 in 2024 and completed fifth, mixing it up with the eight others in a first-ever mass dash to the end. One 12 months later, she took on Unbound XL, the 350-mile in a single day endurance contest throughout the Flint Hills of Kansas, and received the ladies’s division, ending eighth total.
Unbound XL victory, in 20 hours, 57 minutes, 57 seconds, was double the trouble from the 200-miler. She known as an all-out time trial effort, and after the race revealed the chaos of her headlamp going out, a crash and dirt caught in her wheels. Her win and struggling will stay as one of the particular recollections:
So many issues can occur in off-road gravel occasions, particularly the longer the space, and so when one comes collectively, it is an absolute dream come true. And that was Unbound XL for me!
This image all the time speaks to me as a result of I particularly bear in mind seeing Linda leaning out of the Life Time automobile, screaming essentially the most congratulatory of issues – she has been one in every of my greatest supporters, and she or he regarded really so joyful for me. So it is extra that I bear in mind Linda [Guerrette] behind the lens greater than this picture itself, and that I needed to yell one thing again however there have been solely about 5 miles left right here and I actually couldn’t raise my head or neck.
It harm so unhealthy from time trialling for 20 hours, and I used to be truthfully questioning whether or not I may make it to the ultimate few miles, however I simply tried to internalize Linda’s happiness. – Heather Jackson
Rob Britton
- 2025 group – Issue Bikes
- 2025 key outcomes – winner at Unbound Gravel XL
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “The picture Thomas obtained of me from Unbound was unreal and with the outcome to match its actually arduous to beat!”
Canadian Rob Britton moved to gravel racing 4 years in the past after 11 professional seasons on the street. In his first effort in Emporia, Kansas in 2022, he completed sixth on the prestigious Unbound Gravel 200, competing as a part of the inaugural Life Time Grand Prix invitation-only roster of riders. He dropped out of the highest 10 on the subsequent two editions of that signature race.
With a strong second place in 2024 at The Traka 360, he made his mark at Unbound within the XL race in 2025, chasing favorite Lachlan Morton by means of the evening, passing the Australian with 10 miles to go and successful in 17 hours, 49 minutes, 51 seconds. It was a brand new course report for the XL distance. It was a serious win for Britton, calling it “a cool day of racing – a full day and evening”.
The picture by Thomas Prehn took as a lot effort to seize as Britton’s trip, with setups at 4 totally different areas, primarily on the second half of the 350-mile course. It was at 1:30 within the morning when he captured ‘the’ shot. This is a little bit bit about how the one picture you see right here rose to the highest for the Canadian rider, within the phrases spoken in a video recap by Prehn:
I went there [Kansas] with a selected picture idea in thoughts. I needed to seize my pal Rob Britton at evening with an extended publicity so you could possibly see the celebrities. Due to the logistics of the course and the restricted roads, I had very restricted alternatives to seize them.
With the digital camera on a tripod and in addition mounted on a tripod with a rogue modifier, to slender the main target of the strobe, I took a pair take a look at pictures. Lachlan Morton comes up, I utterly missed the shot. I hit the shutter too quickly. Subsequent, Rob Britton comes up, I miss once more. The strobe missed him.
At Kansas 150 and C Street, now after 1:30 within the morning [a third setup for the shot]. I arrange, I take extra take a look at pictures. I get the framing proper and the strobe proper. Lachlan Morton approaches, ah, only a fraction of a second too early [for the right image]. To my shock, Rob Britton is quick approaching. Due to the thirty-second publicity, I’ve just a few seconds to assessment the shot, see what I must do otherwise. I get the shot I am searching for.
Rob instructed me after the race that as he was approaching, he noticed this tripod, and that is why he regarded over at me. Good shot. – Thomas Prehn
Rosa Klöser
- 2025 group – Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto
- 2025 key outcomes – winner at The Rift, CORE4, Ranxo Gravel, Hegau Gravel, Eislek Gravel Luxembourg, Alentejo Gravel and German Gravel Nationals; second at The Traka 200 and fourth at Unbound Gravel 200
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “The Rift.”
Using for Girls’s WorldTour group Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, Klöser had a troublesome determination to make about one picture to convey a prime achievement in 2025, from street racing along with her group at Paris-Roubaix Femmes and Tour de Suisse Girls to successful the German Gravel Nationwide Championship and the general title at Gravel Earth Sequence.
With a view to safe the GES title, having already received three collection occasions and discovering the rostrum on two others, she outdistanced rivals Morgan Aguirre and Karolina Migoń at Ranxo Gravel to keep up her prime factors within the standings. That victory she known as “an incredible reward after a troublesome week”, as she had thought she would take the European Gravel Championship the weekend earlier than, however flatted within the ultimate seven kilometres to complete third.
Whereas successful Ranxo and the GES total on the identical day was her prime spotlight, she chosen her most memorable picture of the 12 months from her win at The Rift:
The Rift, this race was simply an expertise in itself and possibly one of many victories I’m most proud. I used to be using 170 of the 200km on my own, and that took loads of psychological effort. – Rosa Klöser
Sofia Gomez Villafañe
- 2025 group – Specialised Off-road
- 2025 key outcomes – winner at The Traka 200, Valley of Tears, Life Time Little Sugar MTB, Life Time Huge Sugar Traditional, BWR Arizona, BWR California, Cape Epic total and third at Unbound Gravel 200
- Favorite picture from 2025 – “Holy smokes, I received Traka 200 – I really did not see that one coming.”
Sofia Gomez Villafañe continued to dominate the Life Time Grand Prix for a 3rd consecutive season, taking prime factors at Sea Otter Traditional and ending third at Unbound Gravel 200, then ending sturdy with wins at Little Sugar and Huge Sugar. She additionally received a second Cape Epic in tandem with Annika Langvad.
It was her first look at The Traka 200, wedged between the South African stage race and a packed April of US races, which made an indelible impression. She went to Girona to “test it out, perceive the courts, and make it a goal for subsequent 12 months”.
A race is a race, and she or he went to the entrance with one rider, Rosa Klöser, whom she stated was “so sort on the market serving to me navigate the course as a result of I had no concept the place I used to be going. We stored the race tremendous truthful…It got here all the way down to the tip. Unreal.”
The memorable breakaway battle with Klöser noticed the German crash, however Villafañe waited and grabbed a bonus on the ultimate single-track:
Nothing was going fairly proper on the lead-up to Traka. Obtained extraordinarily sick post-Cape Epic, which took a very long time to recuperate from, and I ended up racing 4 weekends straight, with Traka being the ultimate occasion. Journey over to Spain was a nightmare, and we truthfully thought-about calling the race off. However alas, we made it to Spain, the legs had been feeling surprisingly good, and I used to be there to benefit from the occasion.
It was the primary time in a very long time that I felt the liberty to race for the enjoyable of it and never fear an excessive amount of concerning the outcome; seems that was a successful components for me. – Sofia Gomez Villafañe