Building Gravel Worlds: Inside the Country’s Most Ambitious Gravel Weekend

How hard could it be? An event week that includes 13 races – everything from a 5K run to a 300-mile gravel bike race with triathlons added to the mix. An event with roughly 2,000 athletes, including some of the best gravel-racing pros on the planet. Two venues, courses that cross state lines, and much more – welcome to Lauf Gravel Worlds presented by GOODLIFE Nutrition here in Lincoln, Nebraska, an event that was founded in 2010, but originated as the Good Life Gravel Adventure all the way back in 2007.

“The biggest challenge is keeping all the balls in the air that you’re juggling,” says Chief Experience Officer/ Lead Promotor Jason Strohbehn. “There are so many different pieces and people across county and state lines.”

What are all the “balls” Strohbehn finds himself juggling? How’s this for a fun list (of just a few of them):

• The Gravel Worlds bike races include 10-, 35-, 75-, 150- and 300-mile races
• There’s a four-race run series including 5-, 10- and 50-km races, along with a half-marathon
• The USA Triathlon Gravel National Championship races include four events – sprint- and Olympic-distance triathlon and duathlons
• All-told there will be about 2,000 competitors in all the different competitions – 1,500 cyclists, 350 runners and roughly 200 triathletes and duathletes.
• Over 200 volunteers who will put in over 700 hours of time
• Other than the triathlon courses, every race features a different course each year – this year the 300-mile course ventures south into Kansas for part of the journey
• Two different venues – while the cycling and running races are based out of the Sandhills Global Event Center, the triathlon takes place at Branched Oak State Recreation Area, roughly 20 minutes northwest of Lincoln.

As if just putting on all of that isn’t enough, over the last few years Strohbehn and the rest of the Gravel Worlds crew have found themselves hosting one of the biggest professional gravel events in the world, featuring a US$150,000 prize purse (the largest single-day prize pool in gravel cycling), and live coverage.

“It’s a combination of putting on a bike race and a full TV production that’s all mobile and moving,” Strohbehn says. “We have to coordinated cameras, moving commentators and the added safety aspects – we need to have patrol officers in front and behind the pros.”

Logistics

With a new course set up every year, each of the gravel races provides its own challenges long before race week. The design of the courses, especially the 300-mile race, starts even before the previous year’s race happens. In the past the race has gone east into Iowa and Missouri, but this year, for the second time, the 300-mile race will head south into Kansas. Gravel Worlds organizers collaborated with another event called Tony Express to help identify appropriate roads to ride in Kansas. Documentation for course permits is due six months before the race, which means Strohbehn and the race crew need to explore new roads and destinations well in advance. That doesn’t mean last-minute changes don’t happen, though. Last year’s race was hit by a Friday-night storm that turned key parts of the course into quagmires, which mandated modifications to the courses.

One thing that does make the logistics a bit easier is that all the races are self-supported – riders resupply at gas stations and sponsored checkpoints. That can also add some difficulty: “One of the hardest challenges can be finding 24-hour gas stations where people can refuel,” Strohbehn says.

This year’s race features course marshals at every stop sign along the course and expanded law enforcement, which has been funded through GOODLIFE Nutrition’s prize purse sponsorship.

Rule #1: Be Cool

As daunting as all that might seem, Strohbehn is adamant that the main goal for all the crew working on Gravel Worlds is to ensure that “everyone has a good time.” To that end:

• The race’s First2Last Party celebrates the final finisher “bigger than the first”
• Glacial Till Vineyard produces the official celebration champagne, with 2026 labels featuring 2025 champions Rosa Klöser and Matthew Beers
• The 2022 “1,000 Women of Gravel Worlds” initiative more than doubled women’s registration in a single year
• A live DJ entertains runners for Sunday’s race for five and a half hours

Add Water

The triathlon event was added to the weekend three years ago and, last year, became the USA Triathlon Gravel National Championship. This year nationals returns, and will be back next year, too.

“Adding water adds challenges, especially around safety,” Strohbehn says. A new triathlon race director, Melanie Chapman, has joined the 2026 race crew, which has helped with that part of the race weekend.

Hosting a national championship on such a busy weekend might seem like a stretch, but Strohbehn sees the triathlon as a huge opportunity.

“This is a great way to show off Gravel Worlds,” he says. “It opens up new opportunities.”

One of those comes in the form of a unique “triple” triathlon – a 1.5 km swim on Friday at the triathlon, the 75 mile bike race on Saturday and the 25K run on Sunday.

Expo

With a few days still to go before racing begins here in Lincoln, the Sand Hills Global Event Center is being prepped for the race expo, which will feature over 75 different vendors, yet another cog in the busy week of Gravel Worlds.

Despite all the challenges, though, everyone involved in the event – organizers, volunteers, expo vendors, athletes and their friends and fans are no-doubt going to have a fun experience. Not sure if that #1 rule should be “be cool” or “have fun.”

2026 Schedule At a Glance

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