With $100,000 in total prizes up for grabs, the racing brought riders from around the world as six countries were represented in the two final podiums.
(Photo: Dan Hughes)
Updated August 24, 2025 01:13PM
Matt Beers and Rosa Kloser took big wins at Lauf Gravel Worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska, after 150 miles of attritional racing across the rolling gravel hills, minimum-maintained two-track, and the occasional mud bogs decided the race.
In the end, both races finished with two-up sprints as Beers battled Keegan Swenson and Geerike Schreurs challenged Kloser, but the days reached those conclusions in completely different ways.
For the women, Kloser and Schreurs were able to outride the rest of the top women early on at the second crucial minimum maintained road about 30 miles into the race. With plenty of mud grinding the race to a halt, Kloser and Schreurs were clearly the best at clearing the saturated stretch of two-track as most of the lead men and women struggled to find the right path through.
Danni Shrosbree made a massive solo effort to try to bridge to the leading duo shortly after the running section in the mud, but she wasn’t able to make it up to the front. After that point, it was all about the leading duo as they quickly opened up a massive gap that no one else could touch.
(Photo: Dan Hughes)
In the end, Kloser was the stronger of the pair, taking on the brunt of the work and leading into the final few kilometers, leading out the sprint, and winning with a clean pair of wheels ahead of Schreurs. Nevertheless, the duo were strong enough together to put a massive gap on the rest of the race, including Karolina Migon, who wrapped up the final podium place solo around ten minutes back.
The leading male duo spent much less time off the front alone with the race playing out in much more drawn-out, attritional fashion. The mud early in the day was the early decider, detonating the pro field and forcing splits early in the seven-plus hour race. Beers was one of the riders left behind, while the likes of Swenson and Jones managed the mud better. However, Beers was able to claw back his way to the front before pushing the pace along with the rest of the top men.
Over the next hundred miles, as the elevation gain and temperature slowly ticked up, the numbers at the front dwindled, from ten, to eight, to four, and finally to Swenson and Beers, two friends and fierce competitors who had seemed to form a loose alliance that was only broken in the final three kilometers when Swenson began to sit on Beers’ wheel for the final pull to the finish.
Nevertheless, the powerful South African managed to keep the pace high and deliver a devastating sprint to take his first Gravel Worlds crown and the massive $17,500 first-place prize purse in the single largest one-day prize purse in gravel. Behind the first two, Unbound champion Cam Jones rounded out the podium with a sprint win ahead of Adam Roberge.
Matt Beers takes the sprint win over frien-emy Keegan Swenson
(Photo: Dan Hughes)
Gravel Worlds has many unique elements, but the most surreal of them all is the pre-dawn start. While many gravel races roll off the line at sunrise, none of the big gravel prizes start before the sun beyond Gravel Worlds. With a crisp 5:55 AM start for the men, there is a full hour of racing before the sun emerges over the rolling fields of corn stalks, barns, and trees of eastern Nebraska.
Adding to the darkness was the weather that rolled in the night before dousing portions of the course with plenty of precipitation. As is the case any time it rains on a midwestern gravel course, the result can be chaos on the lesser-traveled, minimum-maintained roads. These MMRs, as they are called, often times define the racing as much as any climbs.
Sure enough, those wet MMRs were the decider in both the men’s and women’s races, especially in the first three sectors in the first 30 miles.
(Photo: Dan Hughes)
“The running in the mud made it really hard and really decisive, to be honest,” Beers said of the crucial first 30 miles of the race. “I got caught out in the first mud section pretty bad, and I had to bridge up through three groups, so I really had to dig in to stay at the front.”
Each time the race hit an MMR, the lead group changed, shaving off riders for crashes, mechanicals, and mud clogging the gears and frames of the main men. Ultimately, the course finally settled into a rhythm when the sun was fully up over the horizon and the two-track sections began to dry up. Two and a half hours into the race, the leading group of 13 established itself at the front.
From then on, it was all about surviving the constant rises, descents, MMRs, and the wear and tear of midwestern heat and humidity. 13 dwindled to nine heading into a crucial aid station where the leaders would have to choose who needed to stop for water versus those who could carry on without stopping. Since Gravel Worlds is staunchly self-supported, there is no outside assistance and no handups. That means you must either start with everything you need or stop at the neutral aid stations.
Ultimately, six of the leaders carried on — including Beers and Swenson — while Jones, Roberge, and Brendan Johnston stopped for water and fuel. While it was risky, the gap didn’t last as the group continued with its same nine rider makeup as the race entered its final third.
(Photo: Dan Hughes)
The big shakeout came around twenty miles later when the race entered another MMR, and while this one was dry, it was enough for Swenson to go to the front and make his first big attack of the day, peeling Jones, Roberge, and Beers away from the other five escapees, and quickly built an advantage. Interestingly, Roberge and Jones were the two racers that were looking like they were struggling the most heading into the pivotal MMR attack, but on the other side it was clear that if they could hold on, they were in box seats for a shot at the podium.
Nevertheless, Beers and Swenson seemed to be the strongest, and that proved to be the case a few miles later when the last of the race’s MMR brought Swenson’s second attack, leaving just Beers in his wake. Then, all that was left to decide was who would take the sprint as the two friends pulled seamlessly together towards the line.
“It was really fun to go to the line with one of my best mates,” Beers said. “We played our cards and attacked in the right spots. On the last MMR road, Keegan went really hard, and I just stuck with him before we motored on and sprinted at the finish.
“I have been working on my sprints so I was pretty confident — but yeah, brutal day out there.”
Rosa Kloser and Geerike Schreurs go at it alone
(Photo: Dan Hughes)
The women got underway just ten minutes later with a strong group of contenters fighting for crucial Gravel Earth Series points and the biggest single-day prize purse in gravel racing. Like the men, they started in the dark with the main concern around those MMRs and the moisture rather than the heat, which was a concern for many of the favorites heading into the race.
That concerned to be more than justified as the first three MMRs defined the race. Not only did it bring certain contenders to the fore, it also seemed to eliminate a few key challengers who would typically play a role in Gravel Worlds: Lauren Stephens, minutes back; Morgan Aguirre, minutes back; Sofia Gomez Villafañe, minutes back; Lauren De Crecenzo, minutes back.
At just 25 miles into the 150-mile race, the women’s lead group was just six riders after the first major mud selection.
“It was quite tough, I must say,” Kloser said after the race of the first few sections. “The second MMR was quite muddy, and at the end we made a split with six of us. I was really on the limit with my bike; I just made it out. I could see how packed my bike was with mud.
“Gee [Schreurs] was really driving it, and she was like, ‘Girls, this is the move of the day.’ Then I decided to just grind it out. Due to the SRAM Transmission system, I could push it in the mud without losing the derailleur.”
Yet, those six weren’t out of the woods yet, as the key section that detonated the men’s race just a few minutes early was coming up in just a few miles.
“The next mud section was when it really split up,” Kloser said. “I reckoned that section when I arrived, and it was muddy after two days of no rain, so I knew it was one to watch. I took the grass, and the other girls took the mud and were stuck. But Gee is so good at mud she managed to come back to me.”
That split, that difference in mud riding skill, was all that the two leaders needed to make the difference. Together, they got to work trading pulls, and that collaboration did not stop until the final few turns into the finish.
Cecile Lejeune and Danni Shrosbree made big efforts to try and close the gap to the front two, but Lejeune was beset by a mechanical spurred on by a cattle guard, while Shrosbree simply couldn’t match the full commitment of the leading two. Then again, who could? The duo had a massive gap and were on the same page throughout the 120-mile breakaway.
“On the last climbs, I could tell I was fresher,” Kloser said, “but we actually talked after we made the split to commit to it together. Over such a long distance, you form an ally, so we agreed we’d sprint it out in the end.”
With the front two set to contest the win, and Kloser clearly looking like the stronger of the pair, all that was left to decide was the last podium place. Nine chasers had rallied behind the leading pair, and while they never threatened the leaders, they were clearly the next best riders on the day. Like in the men’s race, the final MMR sections would decide who would find the last podium place as the stronger riders would be looking to find a chink in the other’s armor to avoid a sprint finish.
The reigning Unbound champion, Karolina Migon, was able to be that attacker with a counter-attack of her own, splitting the chasers and giving her a clean pair of wheels to solo to a third-place finish. In the end, Migon cruised to third, twelve minutes back from Schreurs and Kloser, and two minutes ahead of Emily Joy Newsom. Shrosbree, for all her aggression, managed fifth on the line, making it nine nationalities represented in the top five finishers of both races.
Elite Men’s 150 Results
OverallNamePace (mph)Time1Matthew Beers21.786:58:402Keegan Swenson21.786:58:403Cameron Jones21.627:01:514Adam Roberge21.627:01:525Simen Nordahl Svendsen21.477:04:466Torbj R21.477:04:467Julien Gagne21.477:04:488Brendan Johnston21.227:09:469Andrew Dillman21.137:11:3710Chase Wark21.117:12:0611Nathan Spratt21.117:12:0712John Borstelmann20.957:15:2113Tobias Mørch Kongstad20.957:15:2314Skyler Taylor20.957:15:2515Drecho Hugo20.947:15:2816Henry Nelson20.637:21:5917Russell Finsterwald20.637:22:0018Marc Spratt20.637:22:0119Joe Goettl20.637:22:0220Paul Sandmann20.637:22:0521Tobin Ortenblad20.637:22:0922Ethan Overson20.627:22:1423Chad Haga20.577:23:2424Peter Olejniczak20.537:24:1625Peter Stetina20.257:30:21
Elite Women’s 150 Results
OverallNamePace (mph)Time1Rosa Klöser19.127:57:072Geerike Schreurs19.117:57:093Karolina Migon18.628:09:424Emily Joy Newsom18.538:12:105Danni Shrosbree18.488:13:376Courtney Sherwell18.468:14:097Cecily Decker18.388:16:168Jenna Rinehart18.378:16:309Lauren De Crescenzo18.178:21:5310Lauren Stephens17.278:48:1111Leah Van Der Linden17.268:48:1612Crystal Anthony17.258:48:4113Morgan Aguirre17.178:51:07
Results courtesy of Athlinks
(Photo: Dan Hughes)