UCI Gravel World Championships

In 2027 the gravel world title heads into the Alps. Châtel, a mountain resort in the Portes du Soleil a few kilometres from the Swiss border, hosts the gravel races as the discipline joins the combined UCI Cycling World Championships for the first time, with venues spread across the whole of Haute-Savoie.

The exact course is still under wraps, but the organisers promise a mountainous one, mostly on unpaved paths, with forest tracks, high trails and alpine scenery. Châtel sits at around 1,200 m in the Chablais massif, between Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc, and the pairing of gravel and Châtel has already been tried out at the Pass'Portes event.

As at every gravel Worlds, the best specialists line up on the same course as amateurs who earned their place through the UCI Gravel World Series, which makes this one of the biggest gatherings of the championships. The combined format, first staged in Glasgow in 2023, was UCI president David Lappartient's idea, and the Haute-Savoie edition is billed as the largest in the sport's history, with the department hoping for a festival open to everyone.