In a win for Minnesota gravel cycling, La Crescent will host national championships

Lovers of gravel cycling roll into the bluff country of southeastern Minnesota because of its beautiful and challenging backroads across uplands and through river valleys.

Now the U.S. national championships are headed there, too, a major stamp of approval for the region’s cycling scene.

The nationals will be held in September 2025 and 2026 in the city of La Crescent, Minn. La Crosse, Wis., just across the Mississippi River, will co-host, according to the event’s governing body, USA Cycling.

The organization’s Minnesota chapter welcomed the news. “We are absolutely thrilled that USA Cycling selected that location and this region,” said Jeff Hilligoss, Minnesota Cycling Federation president. “The history of gravel in southeastern Minnesota is super rich.”

USA Cycling sanctions championships across styles of cycling, from track and road to mountain biking and BMX racing. The national championships news comes at a time when gravel cycling — riding on unpaved dirt and gravelly roads — appears to be as popular as ever, especially in Minnesota. More organized races and rides of various distances pop up every year, joining mainstays like Ragnarok and the Filthy 50.

While some forms of cycling ebbed after its pandemic-era boom, gravel riding maintained its popularity, Hilligoss said. In bluff country, the riding can include lung-busting ridge climbs followed by dusty, devil-may-care descents. Hilligoss credits the exhilarating experience and the sport’s all-comers, low-barrier vibes “where people feel safe on the roads as well as in that community.”

Gravel cyclists and fans of the sport can look to this year’s national championships in western Nebraska for clues of what to expect in La Crescent. The event is Sept. 8 in Gering, south of Scottsbluff. Beyond the professional riders, amateurs who meet USA Cycling requirements are encouraged to participate, too.

The championships have 22 categories across four courses of different lengths (131 miles, 88, 57 and 25) for age groups and races adapted for riders with disabilities.

Next year’s event will coincide with La Crescent’s Applefest, held the third weekend of September.

Chase Wark of Winona will be on the line as a pro. He’ll also compete in early September in Gering, with an opportunity to talk up the Driftless Area as good gravel. Wark said few other professionals are familiar with its unique combination of remote beauty and intense elevation changes.

“Nobody really knows about it,” said Wark, 27. “They only hear it because I talk about it.”

Wark, who’s also a cycling coach and race director, said the Chequamegon mountain biking race in the Hayward, Wis., area, scheduled for a week before next year’s gravel nationals, might boost participation in the Minnesota competition.

“I hope a lot of people will come down, ride in the area and realize how good it is,” Wark said.

Paul Vogel,a longtime and self-described steward of the popular Spring Valley (Minn.) 100-mile gravel race, is well aware.

First run by Chris Skogen in 2007, and known then as the Almanzo, the race is regarded by many Minnesota cyclists as having put gravel on the map. The ride, which was free, drew thousands of participants. After Skogen retired the Almanzo name several years ago, Vogel and others stepped in to continue it in a new form.

“[The nationals are] an excellent opportunity to share, on a national — although I suspect, a worldwide — scale, the hidden beauty of the region,” said Vogel, who spent his high school years in Spring Valley. “Southeastern Minnesota gravel is the ultimate test of mind, body and soul. The ‘roads less traveled’ can humble the strongest of riders.

“... Racers and riders can expect epic climbs, some hero gravel, river crossings and challenging downhills. Who doesn’t love bombing down hills at 45 miles per hour on a bed of misshapen marbles?”