Race Week Is Here: Gravel Worlds Takes Over Lincoln

Seventeen years in, and Lauf Gravel Worlds presented by GOODLIFE Nutrition still runs the same way that it started. It’s a small Nebraska city that goes all-in for a week, and a start line that somehow keeps getting more international by the year. It’s race week and things are kicking off in Lincoln, and if the last few editions are any indication, this one’s going to be the biggest yet.

Here’s what’s happening, who’s showing up, and how to watch it all go down.

With five days of action the weekend breaks down like this:

Friday 
The Gravel Worlds Triathlon & Duathlon, which doubles as the 2026 USAT Gravel Triathlon National Championships. Featuring a gravel triathlon, Duathlon and the Triple, which involves a 1.5km Swim* on Friday, a 75 mile bike Saturday, and a 25K run Sunday. This is only event that isn’t at the center of all the action, as it will be taking place out at Branch Oak State Park which is about 20 minutes northwest of town.

Saturday 
Brings all the feels with the 300-mile Long Voyage finishers roll in, the flagship 150-mile Gravel Worlds fires off at first light, and the field fills out with the GW75, GW30, and GW10 event. An evening 5K fun run caps things off. Later that night will be the finish line party as those still standing will be welcoming in the last finishers late into the night.

Sunday – Run day, with the 50K Ultra, 25K, and 10K taking over the gravel roads on foot.

Registration is still trickling in, but here’s where things stand heading into race week:

• Just over 2,000 total participants across all disciplines — roughly 1,500 on bikes, 350 on foot, and 200 in the triathlon
• The 75-mile gravel race is the single biggest distance on the schedule
• Riders and runners repping all 50 states
• 20 countries across 5 continents
• An age range that spans 7 to 82 years old
• 160 volunteers logging a combined 900 hours over three days to keep the whole thing running
• 81 vendors at the expo

The Pro Field and the Live Stream

The elite start list is stacked, and it’s still growing – organizers are expecting another 20 or so pro sign-ups once riders clear out of Leadville and turn their attention east. As of now, the GW150 Pro/Elite fields sit at 33 women and 45 men, and the names read like a who’s-who of the current gravel and off-road circuit.

On the women’s side: Karolina Migoń, the reigning Unbound Gravel champion, headlines alongside Sofia Gomez Villafañe, Lauren De Crescenzo, Tiffany Cromwell, Amber Neben, and Geerike Schreurs – a mix of Unbound and Traka veterans, a former WorldTour road pro in Cromwell, and enough depth to make the podium genuinely unpredictable.

The men’s field is anchored by Matt Beers, the defending Gravel Worlds champion, and Keegan Swenson, with Cameron Jones (Unbound’s reigning champ), Chad Haga, and Julien Gagne rounding out a group that’s as comfortable racing 200-plus miles of gravel as they are on a WorldTour start line.

The Course

Southeastern Nebraska doesn’t get the same hype as the Flint Hills or the Rockies, but locals call it “hero gravel” for a reason – fast, tire-friendly roads with minimal flat risk, rolling through farmland that’s more scenic than its reputation suggests. Everything starts and finishes at the Sandhills Global Event Center on the edge of Lincoln, where the expo, camping, and spectator zones are all clustered together – so even if you’re not racing, there’s plenty to see without going anywhere.

5 bike distances go off across the weekend, each with its own character:

• GW10 – an easy out-and-back on closed roads. The mighty mini option for anyone who just wants to see what gravel is all about, no experience required.
• GW35 – roughly 35 miles, about 2,000 ft of climbing, one checkpoint. Non-competitive and built for first-timers.
• GW75 – roughly 75 miles, 5,000 ft of climbing, with checkpoints at the Bolt Recharge Oasis (mile 19.4), the Gooch Goo checkpoint in Ashland (mile 44.4), and the Lauf Cycles Oasis (mile 58.9).
• GW150 – The championship distance. Fully stocked with the Bolt Recharge Oasis (mile 19.4), the Arbor Day Farms checkpoint in Nebraska City (mile 54), a water-only oasis in Nehawka (mile 82.9), the Gooch Goo checkpoint in Ashland (mile 112.4), and a final Lauf Cycles Oasis (mile 133.4) before the run to the line. The 150 and 75-mile routes both pass through Arbor Day Farm, the actual birthplace of the tree-planting holiday, and hit a Gravel Worlds signature checkpoint: riders roll directly through the hangar at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum. Not many gravel races can say their aid station doubles as a Cold War artifact. Winners earn the “Captain of the Gravel Seas” title and a Sword Trophy, backed by a $150K prize purse. The course changes yearly, but the bar is high — Simen Nordahl Svendsen set the current course record of 6:48:46 in 2024, while defending champ Matt Beers won last year’s storm-altered, muddied route in 6:58:40. Conditions swing hard year to year here, and nobody quite knows what Saturday’s version has in store until race morning.
• GW300 (Long Voyage) — the ultra option, starting Friday evening so finishers roll across the line Saturday alongside the 150 field. This one’s unsupported in the truest sense: 8 gas stations and 4 aid stations, open depending on time, no team cars, no crew handoffs, no family meetups on course. Riders are on their own between whatever they can bring with them and whatever they can find at a gas station along the way.

How to Watch

Gravel Worlds was the first gravel race to do a pro level live stream back in 2024 and has continued to lean hard into it, pairing drone footage with on-course cameras to bring viewers into a race that used to live entirely in finish-line stories and Instagram updates. We’ll have that coverage featured right here on the Slowtwitch homepage starting Saturday morning — so whether you’re tracking the 300-mile finishers coming home or watching the 150 and 75 fields roll out at dawn.

Check back Saturday. Race week starts now.

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