To qualify for the 2027 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships, finish in the top 25% of your age group at any UCI Gran Fondo World Series qualifier. Around 35 qualifiers count, the first of them held in September 2026, and a qualification from a road race also gets you a start in the time trial. The 2027 championships run between Thônes and La Clusaz in Haute-Savoie, France, with the time trial on Sunday 22 August 2027 and the road race on Tuesday 24 August.
That’s the rule, and in 2027 there’s a bigger reason to chase it. This Worlds sits inside the combined UCI Cycling World Championships, often called the Super Worlds, where 20 world championships are held as one event over 13 days, almost all of them in Haute-Savoie. You race for a rainbow jersey in your country’s colours, then stay in the Alps and watch the best professionals in the world race for theirs a short drive away. For an amateur rider, I can’t think of a closer way to live the professional experience.
I’m racing for a rainbow jersey of my own in 2027. Below is what you need to get yours: the rules, the calendar, how to pick your qualifier and how to prepare for a very hilly course.
Where: Thônes to La Clusaz, in the Aravis mountains of Haute-Savoie, France
Time trial: Sunday 22 August 2027, 12.7 km with 432 m of climbing
Road race: Tuesday 24 August 2027. The Gran Fondo is 115 km with 3,256 m of climbing, and the Medio Fondo is 80 km with 2,150 m
How to qualify: finish in the top 25% of your age group at a UCI Gran Fondo World Series qualifier
Your age group: set by your age on 31 December 2027
Field: more than 5,000 qualified riders expected, according to the organisers
The 2027 UCI Cycling World Championships run from 24 August to 5 September in Haute-Savoie, with the track events at the national velodrome near Paris. The UCI expects more than 15,000 athletes, from the world’s best professionals to its best amateurs, racing for 288 world titles. Glasgow hosted the first combined Worlds in 2023. Haute-Savoie hosts the second, and it is the first to include gravel.
The region has history. Bernard Hinault won the professional road world title in Sallanches in 1980, and the 2027 men’s elite road race goes back over the same Domancy climb.
The amateur races come first, which is the best part of the plan. Your own racing is done by the time the professionals line up.
Date | Race | Where |
|---|---|---|
Sun 22 Aug | Gran Fondo Worlds time trial | Thônes to La Clusaz |
Tue 24 Aug | Gran Fondo Worlds road race (Gran Fondo and Medio Fondo) | Thônes to La Clusaz |
Thu 26 and Fri 27 Aug | Gravel World Championships | Châtel, Portes du Soleil |
Sun 29 Aug | Men elite road race | Sallanches and Domancy |
Wed 1 Sep | Elite time trials | Lake Annecy |
Sun 5 Sep | Women elite road race | Sallanches and Domancy |
Tadej Pogačar won the elite men’s road race in 2024 and 2025. In Montreal in September 2026, Remco Evenepoel won his fourth straight elite time trial title and Brandon McNulty won the road race, so his title is the one on the line in Sallanches. When Haute-Savoie was awarded these Worlds, the UCI president said the course would give climbers and Grand Tour riders their chance. Expect riders like Pogačar, Evenepoel and Isaac del Toro to want this one, though national teams are picked late in the summer and no rider’s start is confirmed this far out. Stay on after your road race and every one of these races is a short drive away.
The UCI approves the qualification system each year. When I wrote this in October 2026, the 2027 document had not been published, so the rules below follow the 2026 system. I’ll update this guide when it’s out.
At every UCI Gran Fondo World Series qualifier, the first 25% of riders in each age group qualify for Worlds. Three details decide how many places your group gets:
The 25% is counted from the riders who actually start in your age group. Entries and finishers don’t change it.
It rounds up. With 26 starters, 25% is 6.5, so the first seven qualify.
The first three in every age group always qualify, however small the group. You must finish to qualify.
In plain numbers, a group of 120 starters sends 30 riders to Worlds, and a group of six gets three places from the top three rule. Riders from every start wave are eligible if they complete the qualifying distance. The UCI raised the threshold from 20% to 25% in 2023 and can review it each year.
Gran Fondo age groups run 19 to 34, then 35 to 39, 40 to 44 and on in five-year steps. Your 2027 group is set by your age on 31 December 2027, so a rider born in 1983 races in 40 to 44 even if they are 43 on race day. If you qualify in late 2026 and move up a group in 2027, you race Worlds in your new group. The minimum age is 19.
A qualifier with only a road race qualifies you for both the road race and the time trial at Worlds.
A qualifier with both qualifies you for the event you made the cut in, or both if you made it in both.
A qualifier with only a time trial qualifies you for the time trial only.
If you want to race the time trial in Thônes, a road qualifier covers both events.
Many qualifiers use a shorter Medio Fondo for older riders, with the age cut-off set event by event. At the 2027 Gran Fondo Cyprus, men up to 59 and women up to 49 qualify on the Gran Fondo, and men 60 and over and women 50 and over on the Medio Fondo. Check the organiser’s rules for your group before you enter. The age split between the two courses at Worlds hasn’t been published yet.
You can’t race Gran Fondo Worlds if, during the current year, you have been on a UCI-registered team, raced a UCI elite or under-23 Worlds, the Olympic Games, continental or regional games, the Commonwealth Games or a UCI World Cup, or scored UCI points. To start you need a valid licence from your national federation (day licences don’t count), a UCI ID and insurance for accidents and civil liability in France. Sort the licence out before your qualifier, because some qualifiers set their own licence rules.
Most riders qualify through the series. The current year’s masters national champions in the road race and time trial, the continental Gran Fondo champions, the outgoing world champions and a limited number of wildcard holders can also enter. Results announced at a qualifier are provisional until the official list appears on the UCI Gran Fondo World Series website, and qualified riders then get an email with a link to register. At Worlds you race in your country’s colours, and time trial bikes aren’t allowed in the road race.
The 2027 qualifying window opened on 13 September 2026 with Amy’s Gran Fondo in Lorne, Australia, Granfondo Matildica in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and the Gran Fondo of Costa Rica. The autumn qualifiers run until Gran Fondo Hainan in China on 11 to 13 December 2026. These 2027 qualifiers have their dates confirmed so far:
Date | Qualifier | Where |
|---|---|---|
Sun 7 Feb 2027 | Spinneys Dubai 92 | Dubai, UAE |
Sun 14 Mar 2027 | Castellón, Spain | |
Sat 3 Apr 2027 | Umag, Croatia | |
Sun 4 Apr 2027 | Tour de Brisbane | Brisbane, Australia |
Sat 10 Apr 2027 | 3RIDES | Germany |
Sat 8 and Sun 9 May 2027 | Sudety Tour | Broumov, Czechia |
More spring and summer qualifiers will be added to the official calendar. Our free Season Map lists every 2027 qualifier and marks the dates still waiting on organiser confirmation.
Choose your qualifier the way a pro team builds a race programme: by your odds, the trip and where the race sits in your season. The best qualifier for you is the one with the least friction between you and a top 25% finish.
The 25% is the same everywhere, but what it takes to get there changes with the course. When we built the Season Map, we checked our finish-time model against 2025 and 2026 qualifier results. At the power of a typical top 25% finisher, flat races with big bunches ran 10 to 15% faster than the same rider would go alone, rolling bunch races 2 to 3% faster, and climbing races about the same as riding alone. These figures come from reset cc’s own analysis and haven’t been peer reviewed.
A strong pack rider with modest power has a better shot on a flat or rolling course, where being in the right group is worth a lot of watts. A rider with high power for their weight and less bunch experience has a better shot on a climbing course.
FTP, or functional threshold power, is roughly the highest power you can hold for about an hour. Our Season Map model estimates the FTP that reaches the qualifying time in each group, taken as the median across the qualifiers we have results for. It assumes a 72 kg man or a 60 kg woman who trains 10 to 13 hours a week and has average bunch and descending skills.
Age group | FTP to qualify (model estimate) | In watts |
|---|---|---|
Men 19 to 34 | about 4.75 W/kg | about 340 W at 72 kg |
Men 45 to 49 | about 4.2 W/kg | about 300 W at 72 kg |
Women 45 to 49 | about 3.6 W/kg | about 215 W at 60 kg |
Men 70 to 74 | about 3.35 W/kg | about 240 W at 72 kg |
These are model estimates. Checked against our own riders’ race files, the model’s finish times are typically within about 6% of the real result either way, and bunch skill, descending and course choice can move a result by more than that. If you’re below these numbers today, you have a season to change them. reset cc has taken athletes from zero to Worlds-qualified in a single season.
In my coaching experience, the real limit for most riders is time away from work. A qualifier you can drive to on a Friday often beats a famous one that costs four days of travel, and a spring qualifier leaves the summer for Worlds-specific work on long climbs. I also encourage riders to race more than one. More racing is better preparation, and a second qualifier is your safety net if the first ends with a puncture, a crash or a bad day.
Our view at reset cc is that riders have the best chance to qualify at a team camp. You recon the course together, race as a team and have staff on race day with feeds, a mechanic and a plan for the day. Juan, Craig and Marko all qualified for the 2026 Worlds in their first season with reset cc. You can read how Craig qualified with a full-time job and a family and what the team’s week at the Millars looked like.
A closer, lower-stress qualifier can still be the better choice, and we plan around events we don’t attend too. Our free Season Map builds your plan around a reset cc team camp, then adds the qualifiers easiest to reach from home, with your odds at each.
Free tool · 2027 Season Map
Answer nine questions. Get the team camp to target, your odds at every Worlds qualifier and what each course will ask of you.
Pick all that apply. All three are in Haute-Savoie in the same week of August 2027. A road qualification also counts for the time trial, and gravel has its own qualifiers.
The 2027 course is far hillier than Niseko, where I raced in 2026. The Gran Fondo climbs 3,256 m in 115 km, about 28 m for every kilometre, against about 17 m per kilometre on Niseko’s 139.5 km Gran Fondo. The Medio Fondo is almost as steep, at 2,150 m in 80 km. The time trial climbs 432 m in 12.7 km, about 3.4% averaged over the whole course, on slopes the organisers describe as irregular.
The Gran Fondo’s four climbs are the Plateau des Glières, the Col des Fleuries, the Montée de Brizon and the Col de la Colombière. If you’re travelling from outside Europe, plan Worlds as a block of time here: in my coaching experience, riders need at least four or five days on the ground before the time trial to recover from travel and recon both courses properly.
What matters in Haute-Savoie is power for your weight, produced on the fourth climb late in a long race. This is how we build it at reset cc:
Most endurance riding in Z1, our easiest zone. Z2 sits just below your first lactate threshold, where blood lactate first rises above resting levels, and we count it as a harder session.
About two hard sessions a week, three in a big week. In my coaching experience that’s what most masters riders can absorb.
A clear progression, from sustained low-cadence torque efforts, to tempo and tempo-to-threshold work, to VO2 efforts of a few minutes, then over-unders (alternating just above and just below threshold) and 40/20s (40 seconds hard, 20 easy).
Fuelling practised in training. My current guidance for hard rides over two hours is 90 to 120 g of carbohydrate per hour.
The UCI Gravel World Championships run in Châtel, Portes du Soleil, on 26 and 27 August 2027, two days after the Gran Fondo road race. Gravel has its own qualifying series: finish in the top 25% of your age category at a UCI Gravel World Series event. If you enter a gravel qualifier as an elite and miss the elite cut, you can’t claim an age-group place, so enter the category you want to qualify in. If you’re tempted by all three, start with how gravel racing differs from road.
Every reset cc rider starts with a season-mapping call with me, where we choose the qualifiers, the camps and the build to Worlds together. Your coach then updates the plan every week, with two video calls a month and the team chat in between. We race selected UCI Gran Fondo World Series events as a team, with course recon, staff, massage and a mechanic at every camp. For 2027 our Worlds camp has a team base in the Aravis, course recons in race week and full staff for both races.
You don’t have many seasons left, so don’t take chances with this one. It’s too important to leave to AI.
Coaching and membership · 2027 season
If the 2027 Worlds are your goal, this is the season we build with every reset cc rider: your qualifiers, your camps and the build to Thônes, with your coach updating the plan every week.
Team membership · 2027 season
Three levels, from one team camp to the whole season on the road to Worlds. Every level includes:
One-to-one coaching
Your own reset cc coach, and a plan built around your week, your data and the races you care about.
Finish in the top 25% of your age group at a UCI Gran Fondo World Series qualifier. The 25% is counted from the starters in your group and rounded up, the first three in every group always qualify, and you must finish. Masters national champions, continental champions, the outgoing world champions and wildcard holders can also enter.
Between Thônes and La Clusaz in Haute-Savoie, France. The time trial is on Sunday 22 August 2027 and the road race, with Gran Fondo and Medio Fondo courses, is on Tuesday 24 August. They’re part of the UCI Cycling World Championships, which run from 24 August to 5 September 2027.
Yes, if you qualify at an event with only a road race, which qualifies you for both the road race and the time trial at Worlds. At an event with both, you qualify for the event or events you made the cut in. A qualifier with only a time trial covers the time trial only.
The group for the age you’ll be on 31 December 2027. Groups run 19 to 34, then 35 to 39, 40 to 44 and on in five-year steps. If you qualify in one group and move up before Worlds, you race in the new group.
Yes. You need a valid licence from your national federation (day licences don’t count), a UCI ID and insurance for accidents and civil liability in France.
Yes. The Gran Fondo races finish on 24 August. The men’s elite road race is on Sunday 29 August in Sallanches and Domancy, the elite time trials are on Wednesday 1 September around Lake Annecy, and the women’s elite road race closes the championships on Sunday 5 September in Sallanches and Domancy.
Start with your free Season Map. It ranks every 2027 qualifier by your odds and the trip from home, and it takes about three minutes.
Zack Morris is the founder of reset cc and its head coach.
Silver medalist, M35-39 time trial, 2026 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships
National champion, elite and masters
Built and ran Team EF Coaching for five years
