Restricting XCO bikes to 100mm, eliminating 5-person podiums, and reducing teams are measures filtered and proposed by the UCI MTB World Cup

In a recent document leaked by several media outlets, the UCI along with the organizers of the Mountain Bike World Cup would have proposed a significant reform that would turn the MTB world upside down by 2025. It includes profound changes, such as restricting bike routes according to the discipline or reducing the number of teams.

The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup could change a lot in 2025

This has been the second season since Warner Bros acquired the broadcasting rights for the World Cup, and since then, with the collaboration of the UCI, we have already seen important changes such as the unification of a UCI MTB Calendar and the inclusion of Enduro or XCM in the World Cup.

But as some media outlets have reported, first Singletracks and then confirmed by Pinkbike, the organization of the World Cup is proposing even more in-depth changes for 2025.

In the document, it is stated that the measures are focused on making the World Cup be perceived as a more elitist competition, with the best cyclists of each discipline, so that teams and cyclists can have long-term planning and better budgets, and that there is greater exposure and value for brands.

These seem like reasonable goals that few could oppose, but among the many measures reflected in the document, we see some as important as limiting the number of teams to 40, 20 for gravity disciplines and 20 for XCO. This follows a trend we have already seen this year where UCI Elite teams enjoyed a better location and advantages in the paddock while the rest were relegated to much farther locations from the circuit. In 2025, the XCO grid would be directly limited to 20 teams 15 will qualify from one year to the next and 5 will be invited by the organization based on various requirements.

This measure would eliminate all independent teams and cyclists who could compete in the World Cup until now, as was the case with New Zealander Sam Gaze, who lived in his van for months until he secured his first contract, or more recent cases like cyclists Isla Short or Zoe Cuthbert.

The document is very extensive and many rules and details are already detailed, such as the classification for DH races, which would change completely, the requirements for a team to be invited to the World Cup, or that from 2025 there will no longer be podiums with the top 5 finishers. Something that characterizes mountain biking but that would be reduced to 3 to make the competition more similar to the Olympics.

It is important to remember that this leaked document appears under the Confidential label and is a proposal that the World Cup will work on with teams and brands, but the most striking aspect of all appears at the beginning and it is a restriction on the routes of mountain bikes according to their discipline. For XCO, bikes would be restricted from 0 to 100mm and the duration of the race should not exceed 80 minutes. In Enduro, bikes will have between 140 and 160mm with races lasting 4 to 6 hours, and in DH, bikes can have travel from 180mm onwards and descents cannot exceed 3 minutes.

Perhaps this proposal is the most difficult to understand since it seems impossible that brands that have developed XCO bikes and suspensions of more than 120mm would be willing to accept this restriction, but it could also be that this classification is only general guidelines when designing the circuits instead of applying to the bikes.

What is certain is that this proposal for 2025 will shake up the mountain bike world in the coming months, and we will see which measures begin to be implemented next season and which ones are left on the drawing board.