UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and World Championship 2025: Everything you need to know

For many mountain bike fans and riders alike, the UCI Mountain Bike World Series and World Championships are the highlights of the competitive season, when the greatest athletes in the world come together to determine who is the best of the best. Whether you’re new to the world of MTB and looking for an easy explainer of the many events, or a long-time fan who wants all the details on this year’s line-up, our guide will walk you through it all. 

What are the UCI MTB World Series and World Championships and what exactly is the difference between them? 

This year, the UCI MTB World Series comprises 15 events in four different disciplines, spanning 10 countries and six months. You might sometimes hear events within the World Series referred to as World Cups. A season-long string of events in a specific discipline is structured into a UCI Mountain Bike World Cup – which is what the riders are competing for at the end of their season. Where it gets a tiny bit confusing is that these World Cups altogether are referred to as the World Series. And to make matters worse, the term ‘World Cup’ is still often used to describe both the season-long competition as a whole, and individual events. 

While some participants may only enter one or two rounds of the Series, the top riders are more likely to compete at each round featuring their discipline (or disciplines). Competitors rack up points as they go, with the end goal of coming out on top at the end of the season. 

The stature of the UCI MTB World Series is huge in elite mountain biking, with around 900 elite riders competing across a season. 

While the World Series unfolds over six months, the UCI MTB World Championships is a concentrated single event comprising races in six disciplines. It will be held this year in Valais, Switzerland from 30 August to 14 September 2025. 

Riders come from all over the world to compete in their respective disciplines and the winner of each discipline comes away from the race as world champion, and gets to wear the rainbow banded world champion’s jersey for a year – just as with the UCI Road World Championships. 

The World Series and World Championships are distinct from each other, but both make for fascinating entertainment. We’ll get into exactly where you’ll be able to watch the action later. 

The UCI MTB World Series encompasses four disciplines, each with its own unique characteristics. Enduro is further split into regular and e-bike. The major update for 2025 is that cross-country marathon has been dropped from the World Series programme (although you’ll still be able to see it at the World Champs). 

These are the disciplines in the UCI MTB World Series for 2025: 

Description: Cross-country Olympic races are held on a circuit course with varied terrain, including technical descents, steep climbs, and singletrack sections. Riders complete multiple laps of the course. 

Format: Mass start with all riders starting together and racing to complete a set number of laps. Canyon riders will likely deploy the Lux World Cup. 

In 2025: Loana Lecomte powered her way to the fourth spot on the final Series rankings with impressive results including the overall win at Mont-Sainte-Anne and Valais. On the men’s side, Luca Schwarzbauer flew the flag for Canyon CLLCTV last year, ranking sixth overall at the end of the XCO series.  

Description: XCC races are shorter, high-intensity races usually held on a short circuit of around 1 to 1.5 kilometres. 

Format: Mass start with riders completing a set number of laps, lasting around 20-25 minutes. 

In 2024: If you thought his Olympic results were good, Luca Schwarzbauer was even more impressive on the short track course in 2024, taking third in the overall rankings. It was a discipline in which the Canyon Lux really shone last season, with reigning world champion Sam Gaze of Alpecin-Deceuninck securing fourth in the overall rankings too.

Description: Downhill races are time-trial events where riders descend a steep, technical course as fast as possible. 

Format: Individual timed runs with the fastest time winning. Canyon’s elite riders choose the Sender CFR. 

In 2024: We said goodbye to legendary athlete Tahnee Seagrave at the end of the season after she spent five years racing on Canyon downhill bikes. Seagrave finished third overall in the World Series. Luca Shaw was the CLLCTV’s top-ranked male downhiller finishing up in eighth position.  

Description: Enduro races consist of multiple timed downhill stages combined with untimed uphill or liaison stages. Riders receive a composite time made up of all the timed sections. 

Format: Riders complete several stages over one or two days, with the total time from all timed stages determining the winner. Our enduro riders use the Strive CFR in competition. 

In 2024: A confident performance across the season saw Jesse Melamed and Jack Menzies both notch top tens on the men’s side of the EDR rankings.  

Between the UCI MTB World Series and the UCI MTB World Championships, there are a ton of races to watch in 2025. 

Here’s the full calendar for the World Series: 



The UCI MTB World Championships 2025 take place from 30 August to 14 September in Valais, Switzerland. As well as the established disciplines we’re used to seeing at the Worlds, the keen-eyed among you may also notice that the cross-country marathon returns to the main Worlds programme, after 2024 saw the UCI host a separate World Championship for the discipline last year. Electric mountain bike cross-country is back for 2025, while we’ll also get some pump track to enjoy.  

In 2024, the standout ride among Canyon athletes at the UCI MTB World Championships was undoubtedly Puck Pieterse, who bagged the gold in cross-country Olympic aboard her Canyon Lux World Cup. The result capped off a stunning summer for the young Dutch athlete, who also snagged the Tour de France young rider’s classification.  

Events included in the 2025 UCI MTB World Championships programme are: 

• Downhill 
• Pump track 
• Enduro & e-enduro 
• Cross-country short track 
• Cross-country Olympic 
• Cross-country marathon 
• E-mountain bike cross-country 

The UCI Mountain Bike World Championships were first held in 1990, with the first UCI Mountain Bike World Cups being held the following year. The name ‘UCI MTB World Series’ was inaugurated in 2023, to help bring together all the disciplines. 

Over the seasons, the disciplines included in both events have changed. Last year, for the first time, enduro and e-enduro were included in the UCI Mountain Bike World Series. 

Since inception, the MTB World Series has expanded further around the globe, now with rounds in South America, and a steady stream of new venues in Europe and North America. 

Learn more about the newest of the UCI’s major World Championships in our guide to the UCI Gravel Worlds. 

This year’s UCI MTB World Series features a lot of returning favourite venues, but there are also a couple of fresh faces. Lake Placid in the US and La Thuile in Italy will be hosting rounds of the downhill for the first time, and last year’s debutant Araxá in Brazil hosts the first two rounds of the series back-to-back this year.  

There are a total of five events in Italy this year, with only the Brazilian season openers taking place outside either Europe or North America. 

The World Championships in Valais promise to be a real feast of MTB action, with venues dotted all around a region that is very much a mecca for mountain bikers. Expect enduro at Aletsch, cross-country marathon in Verbier, pump track at Monthey and Champéry for the downhill.  

Canyon’s pro athletes are out in full force at the 2025 UCI MTB World Series. They will be competing across all four disciplines that are featured in the Series, not to mention the events included in the Worlds at Valais. 

Here are some of the Canyon athletes to watch out for over the rest of the UCI MTB World Series. 

Marine Cabirou is a new athlete on the Canyon CLLCTV team, but in 2024 she enjoyed her most successful year ever, placing second in the overall series rankings. She took wins in the rounds at Bielsko-Biała and Mont-Sainte-Anne. This season she’ll lead our women downhillers from the front. 

In the downhill men’s rankings, Troy Brosnan and Luca Shaw are two riders who’ll keep you on the edge of your seat. Brosnan won the semis at Fort Bill, before snagging silver in the final last year, and is headed into his ninth consecutive season riding Canyon bikes at the world’s biggest races.  

It’s a new look for the women’s cross-country team in 2025, with Jenny Rissveds and Valentina Corvi both joining the CLLCTV. With Loana Lecomte moving on to pastures new, the new dynamic duo will no-doubt be looking to tear up the circuit this season. Of course, we couldn’t miss out Puck Pieterse, although her split-focus on the road as well as XC means we are unlikely to see the rainbow jersey at every round of the Series. Expect her to pop up with some monster results when it matters, though! 

Staying with XC, Luca Schwarzbauer and Sam Gaze lead the Canyon charge on the men’s side.  

In enduro, watch out for Jesse Melamed in the men’s events. Canyon also has a rider in the E-Enduro series, so if you are as excited as we are about the inclusion of e-biking in the World Series, be sure to check out Manuel Soares José Borges who competes on his Strive:ON. 

Now that you have all of the details on the 2025 UCI MTB World Series and World Championships and you’re ready to watch the best riders battle it out on the courses, how can you do just that? 

The UCI MTB World Series hasn’t yet updated its info on how to watch the 2025 season live, but as soon as it does you can rest assured we’ll let you know. We do know that last season the main broadcasters were Max, Discovery+ and StayLive, with FloSports having the rights in Canada and Stan in Australia.