{"id":844778,"date":"2026-08-03T17:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844778\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:09:09","slug":"uci-gravel-world-series-simon-pellaud-and-natalia-franco-solo-to-wins-at-high-elevation-bogota-gravel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844778\/","title":{"rendered":"UCI Gravel World Series: Simon Pellaud and Natalia Franco solo to wins at high-elevation Bogot\u00e1 Gravel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Pellaud<\/a> (Cervelo-Assos-Maxxis) and Natalia Franco (ENVE) soloed to victories at the inaugural Gravel Bogot\u00e1 in the Colombian Andes. The freshly minted gravel race in South America was one of three GravelKing UCI Gravel World Series<\/a> events held this past weekend, spread across three continents.<\/p>\n

A former WorldTour rider from Switzerland, Pellaud has lived in Colombia for the past decade. He had scouted the roads for the 127km route and used an early attack to ride away from the field, finishing in 3:44:37. The final podium spots were decided in a sprint between Colombians Camilo G\u00f3mez and Carlos Juli\u00e1n Quinteros nine-and-a half minutes back, G\u00f3mez surging to the line in second.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The route featured 1,886 metres of elevation gain, with the start in Ch\u00eda at 2,564 metres above sea level. Most of the climbing was featured on three ascents in the opening 45km, which Pellaud called “the toughest part”. Two smaller climbs broke up a long valley section surrounded by towering sandstone canyon walls on the northernmost section and then a return through Tocancipa connected with a shorter route for the finish on grass in Ch\u00eda.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos FromCyclingnews<\/p>\n

“People want to get off the busy roads and explore more remote areas\u2014to experience nature and enjoy a quieter ride. That\u2019s why gravel is such a great mix of road and unpaved routes; it strikes a perfect balance. I think it\u2019s a discipline that\u2019s really booming right now, so it\u2019s great to take advantage of it,” Pellaud told organisers.<\/p>\n

His gravel season was delayed by a knee injury in February, and he has made steady improvement with 15th at Unbound Gravel and then second at the UCI Gravel World Series race in Germany at Hegau Gravel. He returns to the US this month for Leadville Trail 100 MTB, as he is seventh overall in the elite men’s leaderboard of the Life Time Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

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Franco, who is in the women’s wildcard field of this year’s Life Time Grand Prix series, scored her first victory of the season at her home gravel race Sunday. She finished in 4:37:58, more than an hour ahead of the next elite woman, compatriot Valentina Ovalle.<\/p>\n

The UCI Gravel World Series offers one competition next weekend, on August 8 heading to Gravel Weekend in Latvia. The top 25% of riders in age-group and pro divisions at each series event qualify for the UCI Gravel World Championships in Western Australia, October 10-11, 2026.<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Results<\/p>\n

Swipe to scroll horizontally<\/p>\n

Elite men top 3<\/p>\n

Place<\/p>\n

Full Name (Team)<\/p>\n

Diff<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

Simon Pellaud (Switzerland)<\/p>\n

3:44:37<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Camilo G\u00f3mez (Colombia)<\/p>\n

+0:09:23<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Carlos Juli\u00e1n Quintero (Colombia)<\/p>\n

+0:09:25<\/p>\n

Swipe to scroll horizontally<\/p>\n

Elite women top 2<\/p>\n

Place<\/p>\n

Full Name (Team)<\/p>\n

Diff<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

Natalia Franco (Colombia)<\/p>\n

4:37:58<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Valentina Ovalle (Colombia)<\/p>\n

+1:16:44<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Simon Pellaud (Cervelo-Assos-Maxxis) and Natalia Franco (ENVE) soloed to victories at the inaugural Gravel Bogot\u00e1 in the Colombian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-844778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}