18 September 2026 · News · gravel
Gravel Worlds comes to Australia
On 10-11 October the rainbow jersey is decided on gravel in Nannup, Western Australia. It's the first gravel Worlds held outside Europe, and the first world championship on Australian soil since Wollongong.
2026 has been a good year to own a television. Cyclo-cross opened in Hulst at the end of January, the mountain bikers had Val di Sole in late August, and the road Worlds start in Montreal this weekend and run to 27 September. Then, on the second weekend of October, the whole thing lands in our own backyard.
The 2026 UCI Gravel World Championships are in Nannup, Western Australia, on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October. It's the first time the gravel Worlds have been held outside Europe. After Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, the rainbow bands get decided in the karri country three and a half hours south of Perth.
The last time a world championship was held here, it was the road Worlds in Wollongong in September 2022, an hour and a half down the coast from the MC Clubhouse. Plenty of us rode the course and drove down to watch the race. This one is further away, but it’s the same rare thing: the best in the world racing on Australian roads.
What the course asks of them
It's a hard one. More than 80% gravel, and the climbing never really stops.
Riders roll out on 9 km of undulating bitumen before the surface turns. From there it’s a succession of climbs between 100 and 300 m, none of them long, most of them steep, arriving one after another with very little recovery in between. Every category finishes on the same closing 24.5 km southern loop with two climbs in it. October down there sits between about 10 and 21 degrees, which is close to perfect racing weather.
Three courses, all starting and finishing in the same place:
- 144 km, 3,713 m - elite men and men 19-49
- 125.6 km, 3,179 m - elite women, women 19-49, and men 50-64
- 90 km, 2,047 m - women 50+ and men 65+
Saturday is the women’s day, along with the men 50-64. Sunday belongs to the elite men and the men’s age groups up to 49.
Where is Nannup
Nannup is about 278 km from Perth, a drive of three and a half hours. It’s half an hour from Busselton Margaret River Airport and an hour from Margaret River itself, which puts a world championship in the middle of one of the better parts of the country to spend a week: forest, farmland, surf beaches, and more good food and wine than a race weekend really allows time for.
The towns around the course are the accommodation, there’s camping, and the organisers are running a spectator register for updates and access tips. For anyone who has watched a Worlds at four in the morning with the sound down, the novelty of one in daylight hours on home soil should not be undersold.
What is SEVEN
The Worlds didn’t land in Nannup by accident. It’s there because of a race called SEVEN.
SEVEN is run in the Blackwood Valley, linking seven distinct gravel sectors between the towns of Nannup and Balingup, which is where the name comes from. It has run since 2021, it bills itself as Australia’s toughest one-day gravel race, and it offers shorter versions - FIVE, THREE and ONE - for riders who want the terrain without the full distance. It grew into Australia’s round of the UCI Gravel World Series, the international qualifying circuit where finishing in the top 25% of your category earns a start at the Worlds.
So when the UCI went looking for somewhere outside Europe, there was already a proven race, on proven roads, with a proven organisation behind it. The championship courses use the same terrain the SEVEN sectors are cut from, which makes this the first gravel Worlds run on the same ground as its own qualifier. The locals have been riding these sectors for years. In October the rest of the world finds out what they’re like.
Where we come in
Nothing about this needs us. But it’s a good few weeks to be a gravel rider in Australia, and gravel is the part of cycling that has changed most in recent years.
If it has you wanting to ride dirt, that’s the thing to act on. If your gravel bike has been in the shed since autumn, bring it in before you rediscover it the hard way. And if you don’t have one yet, come and look at what a modern gravel bike actually does now, which is a great deal more than the 2019 version.
Three weeks to go. No alarms this time!
