A World Championship, Three Hours From Our Workshop
On 10 and 11 October, Nannup — a small town in Western Australia's Blackwood Valley, about three hours south of Perth — hosts the 2026 UCI Gravel World Championships. It's the first time the event has been held outside Europe, after three editions in Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. We have no official relationship with the event or its organisers, but it's happening close enough to home that we've been following the course reveal, the travel logistics and the local build-up more closely than we'd normally admit to a race we're not racing.
The Course
Elite women race on Saturday 10 October over 123.1km with roughly 3,100m of climbing; elite men race Sunday 11 October over 140.7km with about 3,625m of climbing — numbers that put both courses closer to a hard Alpine road stage than a typical gravel weekend. At least 80% of each route is gravel: a mix of dirt, hard-packed clay, quartz grit and mica, sweeping through the Blackwood Valley, pine plantations and forest, with repeated 1-3km climbs at 5-8% (Brockman and Ellis Creek feature on both courses, with an added loop and the Arcadia climb for the men). Every category finishes on the same 27km loop around Nannup, so the closing kilometres are where the racing — and the spectating — concentrates.
Getting There, If You're Going
Nannup itself is reportedly close to fully booked already, so most visitors are staying in the wider Margaret River region — Busselton, Dunsborough, Margaret River town or Augusta — all 40-60 minutes away, with the official event campground at the Nannup Recreation Centre if you'd rather be within walking distance of the start line. Expect October weather in the 11-21°C range: cool mornings, mild days, nothing like the 40°C-plus summers this part of WA is known for later in the year.
If the Terrain Has You Thinking About Your Own Bike
You don't need to be racing a World Championship to learn something from the course notes. Repeated 5-8% gravel climbs reward a bike that holds its line when the surface gets loose underneath you, and a frame that doesn't add unnecessary weight to every one of those 1-3km efforts. It's exactly the kind of terrain — hard-packed clay one moment, quartz grit the next — where a titanium frame's steady, predictable flex under load makes a longer day easier on the body, whether you're chasing a Worlds qualifying time or just riding the section of the Munda Biddi that passes through the same town.
We'll be watching from Perth on both race days, not from a team car — but a World Championship on home soil is still a good excuse to get out and ride gravel yourself that weekend, wherever you are.