Life Time Grand Prix 2026 series

Life Time Grand Prix 2026 information

This year's Life Time Grand Prix sees a fifth edition for one of the most prestigious off-road racing series for professionals cyclists, combining six US gravel and mountain bike events between April and October.

The 2026 Life Time Grand Prix offers a season-ending $350,000 total top-10 purse, shared equally among elite women and men, with the top points scorers banking $50,000 each. There will be $240,000 in prize money offered across the individual events, with Unbound Gravel 200 and Leadville Trail 100 MTB each handing out $60,000 for the top five, all prizes split evenly among the two pro divisions.

New for this season is a $2,500 bonus for every athlete who completes the full LTGP season (minimum of three finishes) beyond 10th place.

An invitation-only field will be comprised of 25 women and 25 men, final standings determined in the best five out of six scores. Rosters consist of the top five athletes from the previous year, the top U23 riders (one women, one man) and a wildcard selection made after Sea Otter and Unbound Gravel.

Life Time, a healthy lifestyle brand and athletic event producer, owns all six events that comprise the 2026 series. The first event will be April 16 at the Sea Otter Classic Gravel in Monterey, California, the pros having a dedicated 90-mile race on a Thursday ahead of other fields on Friday.

The final event will be October 17 at Big Sugar Gravel in Bentonville, Arkansas, which remains a mandatory event and is also the tie-breaker if needed.

All six events are the same as 2025. Check out the individual races.

Life Time Grand Prix history

Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Off-road) and Cameron Jones (Scott-Shimano) won the series titles for 2025, which was a third overall win for Villafañe. Jones earned his way into the invitational-only field as a wild card, winning Unbound Gravel 200. He vaulted past three-time Grand Prix champion Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycles-htSQD) in the final race at Big Sugar Classic.

Villafañe dominated the Grand Prix from 2023 to 2025, after going second the first season. Canadian Haley Smith (Maxxis Factory Racing) won the elite title for women in October 2022.

That first season, Smith and Swenson earned top prizes of $25,000 each.

Sea Otter Classic Gravel 2026

The Sea Otter Classic Gravel race in Monterey, California returned for a second year with a 30-mile circuit, ridden three times by the pro fields. The first few years the Fuego XL mountain bike event was contested across Fort Ord National Monument dirt roads, near the Pacific Ocean in northern California.

Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Off-Road) and Bradyn Lange (Canyon x DT Swiss All-Terrain Racing) won the 2026 openers, taking the first leads of the 2026 Life Time Grand Prix.

Unbound Gravel 200 2026

Unbound Gravel 200 continues as the signature event for the Life Time Grand Prix. The demanding 200-mile event is the longest race in the Grand Prix. The course is renowned for sharp rocks, primitive roads and steep pitches in and out of gullies through the Tallgrass Prairie, with a start/finish in Emporia, Kansas. Last year a northerly route through the Flint Hills was taken, and the 2026 has yet been confirmed.

In 2026, Specialized Off-road teammates earned victories, Sofia Gomez Villafañe won her second women's title while Mads Würtz Scmidt went from fourth last year to first this year.

Leadville Trail 100 MTB 2026

Leadville Trail 100 MTB brings the series to a high-elevation mid-point of the calendar in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The challenging out-and-back, 104-mile course begins at 10,152 feet in elevation and uses rough forest service roads plus double and single track to pack in more than 12,000 feet of elevation gain. It is one of the most challenging, one-day mountain bike endurance events on the calendar.

Swenson has dominated the race for five consecutive years, winning again in 2025. Former cross-country MTB World Champion Kate Courtney set a new course record for women, beating defending champion Melisa Rollins, who took the Grand Prix top points.

Chequamegon MTB Festival 2026

The second mountain bike competition in the series is Chequamegon MTB Festival. The 40-mile point-to-point course across northern Wisconsin starts in downtown Hayward and followed parts of the famed Birkie Cross-country Ski Trail across forest roads and snowmobile trails with short, punchy climbs to the finish line in Cable.

US riders Melisa Rollins and Alexey Vermeulen won elite titles in 2025, both going solo across the line.

Life Time Little Sugar MTB 2026

Little Sugar MTB is not a new event, but last year was added to the Grand Prix lineup. The 100km race in northwest Arkansas is known for grinding climbs, tight descents and rough, rocky limestone surfaces across the Ozark Mountains.

Cameron Jones and Sofía Gómez Villafañe scored the victories, and top Life Time Grand Prix points, in 2025.

Big Sugar Gravel 2026

The Life Time Grand Prix culminates in Bentonville for the now-traditional Big Sugar Classic fiinale, a 104-mile gravel race. In 2025 the route through northwest Arkansas and southern Missouri was cut to 50 miles due to inclement weather.

Grand Prix riders Matt Beers and Villafañe scored victories, which confirmed Villafañe as the elite women's series winner for a third time.

On the men's side, series leader Swenson was ousted from the overall by Cameron Jones, as they had been separated by a single point, with Jones finishing seven places better in Big Sugar than his rival to take the overall title.