USA Cycling Releases 2026 Gravel Nationals Courses
For the second year running, USA Cycling is parking the Stars and Stripes jersey in La Crescent, Minnesota, deep in the Driftless Region. Race day is September 12, and the field will once again spill out of Houston County toward the river bluffs that made the 2025 edition a punchy and climby affair.
Three distances are on the table this year:
- 31 miles: 2,484' of climbing
- 68 miles: 4,460' of climbing
- 106.9 miles: 6,823' of climbing
For context, last year's 100-mile course came in around 7,700' of gain, so the 2026 long course is trending slightly tamer on paper, though "tamer" in the Driftless Region is still a full day of punchy walls stacked on top of each other. The climbing-per-mile ratio here does more damage than the total numbers suggest.
2025 Results - linked here.
The course is seemingly never flat: constant rollers that stack up and repeat over and over, around 5-7+ minutes of sustained climbing even for the fastest riders in the field. If you're racing this one, start revving that VO2 engine now. You're going to need it.
The event schedule is set up as a three-day affair:
- Thursday, September 10: Packet pick-up / rider confirmation
- Friday, September 11: Shakeout ride, vendor expo, packet pick-up / rider confirmation, rider meeting
- Saturday, September 12: Race day, vendor expo, awards
Saturday's waves start at 7:00 a.m. for Elite/Open fields on the 106.9-mile course and stagger through the morning and midday for the shorter distances and age categories, with junior and 13-14 fields on the 31-mile loop, and the 15-18 and masters fields (50+) tackling the 68-mile course starting at noon.
We'll leave the full course breakdown to Ben Delaney, who's releasing a video on 7/31. We'll add it to this post as soon as it's live. In the meantime, the route links are neatly organized on Ride With GPS:
For more on the event and how the past two editions played out, check out the links below: