Until this year, the UCI Gravel World Championships has taken place in Europe but the flavour of the event will change distinctly in 2026 as the race is heading all the way to a corner of Australia, where UCI bike races may be a rarity but the terrain to hold this one on is bountiful.
"I'm a little bit biased but the southwest region of Western Australia is a gravel cycling mecca," event and race director Stephen Gallagher told Cyclingnews. "You have the climate, and the topography of the region is very hilly – it is a very Liège-Bastogne-Liège type of elevation and demand – so that combined with thousands of kilometres of pristine gravel has given us the perfect storm for brilliant gravel cycling."
