The 2026 Nedbank Gravel Burn rolls out of Robert Sobukwe Town / Graaff-Reinet on Sunday, 25 October, with a pro line-up stacked with returning champions, established winners and riders crossing over from road, mountain bike and gravel. Over seven days and 750km, the second edition will run through the Great Karoo before finishing at Shamwari Private Game Reserve on Saturday, 31 October.
Two-time mountain bike marathon world champions Andreas Seewald and Henrique Avancini, 2023 Paris-Roubaix winner Alison Jackson and 2026 Gravel World Championships bronze medallist Larissa Hartog are listed among the challengers joining defending champions Matt Beers and Axelle Dubau-Prévot. In year two, the race has again drawn a field with wins on the cobbles of northern France, the gravel roads of Kansas and the trails of the Cape Epic.
A defending champion with a warning label
Defending champion Axelle Dubau-Prévot returns after a proper last-day ambush in 2025, when she began the final stage almost nine minutes off the overall lead and still overturned the deficit to win at Shamwari Private Game Reserve. That alone makes her one to watch: not because stage races always repeat themselves, but because the Karoo clearly rewards riders who can keep calm when the time gaps get rude.
She will not have much room to breathe. Canada’s Alison Jackson brings the engine and craft that won Paris-Roubaix in 2023, while Germany’s Carolin Schiff arrives with a 2023 Unbound Gravel 200 victory on her CV. Elena Hartmann, a three-time Swiss time-trial champion, finished both the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia last year, and Nathalie Eklund has twice won the Swedish national gravel title. Different backgrounds, same problem for rivals: these are riders who know how to suffer, position themselves and make good decisions when the road surface turns feral.
Worlds form meets Karoo grit
The recent Gravel World Championships in Australia also sharpened the start-list. Larissa Hartog of the Netherlands, bronze medallist at the 2026 Gravel World Championships, is set for her Nedbank Gravel Burn debut, as are Germany’s Nele Laing, who finished fourth, and Switzerland’s Irina Lützelschwab, who finished seventh. Schiff, 11th at those championships, adds another recent benchmark to the mix.
Germany’s Jade Treffeisen and Canada’s Sarah Diekmeyer also raced at the Gravel World Championships and are listed for the Karoo, joining a field that includes South Africa’s Hayley Preen, the USA’s Alexis Skarda, Great Britain’s Isla Short and Germany’s Clara Koppenburg.
Preen gives South African fans a very real reason to hover over the live updates. She was third at Nedbank Gravel Burn 2025 by mere seconds, has spent the season racing between South Africa and the United States, and currently sits fourth overall in the Life Time Grand Prix series. Earlier in October, she finished fourth at Little Sugar behind Skarda, who is eighth in the Life Time Grand Prix standings.
Why this field matters
Founder Kevin Vermaak said it was “great to welcome back both defending champions alongside world champions, a Paris-Roubaix winner and a Gravel World Championships medallist” in only the event’s second year. He added that stage racing in the Karoo is “a different kind of test” requiring “patience, resilience and smart racing as much as firepower”.
That is the bit riders at home can appreciate, whether or not we ever pin on a pro number: seven days in remote country is not just a watts contest. It is pacing, eating, handling, sleeping, choosing when to burn matches and when to let someone else do the silly thing into the wind. The 2026 Nedbank Gravel Burn starts on 25 October and ends on 31 October, and the race has all the ingredients for a proper Karoo chess match — just with dust, corrugations and far better calves.