Life Time Grand Prix - everything you need to know about the series with the biggest purse in off-road racing

If you follow international off-road bike racing, you’ve probably heard of the Life Time Grand Prix – but what’s it all about?

off.road.cc staff

May 7 2024

Feature

[Words by Steve Thomas]
The Life Time GP was launched in 2021 and its format and approach have created something of a buzz in the USA, and to a lesser extent elsewhere. It is primarily a US entity – and they tend to do things big in America, and the Life Time Grand Prix approach and funding are big in cycling off-road terms.

With its big-buck prize promise and with the US being the undisputable home of big-time and long-distance gravel and mountain bike racing, plus the ever-growing popularity and viability of off-road endurance racing with both hybrid bike racers and weekend gravel and grit warriors alike, there was a place for a marque event series, which there now is in the US with the LTGP.

Perhaps the key to bringing this all together and making sense commercially lies in the fact that Life Time happens to own a bunch of the biggest of these off-road races, plus a huge number of other sports events and a whole ruck of athletic faculties in the US, dust this mix with a little Vegas glitz and glamour, and it seems to be working out with the series.

The US has long since been a place where big and bold sporting events and high-reward challenges have thrived and even in cycling terms (mostly road racing) there have been some very lucrative race series and double bills in the past, plus a few slightly logical yet eccentric race format experiments that were at least attempted to be exported to Europe.

Sadly, such things simply do not seem to have a space in the staid and traditional old world of cycling or at least not on the hard stuff (road) – but gravel and endurance racing is a little more fresh and rebellious. So far, at least with the major US events, they have also managed to avoid too much in the way of UCI involvement, which often brings in a bunch of rules, regs and restrictions, which is probably why these things only seem to thrive in America.

The 2024 races

The Life Time Grand Prix is a “race within a race” classification series of gravel and MTB races in the USA, where the selected riders are part of the main elite race lineups for all rounds, and so also appear in the individual results of the races and then score points for the overall GP series on top of that.

There are seven races in the series, with the first having taken place at Sea Otter in California.

Round 1 – 19 April, Fuego XL 100k MTB at Sea Otter Classic, Emporia, California.

Here 2023 series winners Sofia Gomez Villafane and Keegan Swenson took victory once again this year.

Round 2 – 1 June, Unbound Gravel 200, Emporia, Kansas

Unbound (formerly called Dirty Kanza) is widely considered the ultimate and biggest gravel race in the world, and many also refer to it as the unofficial gravel World Championship. Naturally, the race is also the star turn in LTGP series, and in 2023 Gomez Villafane & Swenson took the honours in this 200-mile classic.

Round 3 – 13 July, Crusher in the Tushar, Utah

Crusher in the Tushar is a punishing and high-rise climbers 69-mile gravel race around Utah’s Tushar mountains and is one that produced a familiar double victory for Gomez Villafane and Swenson last time around.

Round 4 – 10 August, Leadville Trail 100 MTB, Colorado

Leadville is one of the oldest standing marathon MTB races around and is also one of the toughest and highest profile too. The “almost out and back” and super hilly 104-mile race always attracts some of the biggest names in cycling, including Lance Armstrong during his heyday, and – predictably, the gravel super couple of Gomez Villafane and Swenson won outright once again in 2023.

Round 5 – 14 September, Chequamegon MTB, Wisconsin

The 40-mile point-to-point MTB race occurs out of Hayward, a ski area in Wisconsin. The route takes in cross-country ski and snowmobile trails, and last year it was Ruth Edwards & Alexey Vermeulen who scored top points and victory here.

Round 6 – 28 September, Rad Dirt Fest, Colorado

With lots of tough high-altitude off-road climbing through Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and based out of the town of Trinidad, this is an extremely tough 110-mile gravel epic. Last year it was won by Lauren De Crescenzo and Vermeulen.

Round 7 – 19 October, Big Sugar Gravel, Arkansas

The grand finale of the series is the ever-popular Big Sugar Gravel, a rough-cut 104-mile gravel race through the Ozark Mountains on the Arkansas-Missouri border, out of Bentonville. In 2023, both races were won by non-LTGP eligible riders, while De Crescenzo and Brendan Johnson both fished second on the day and were thus the GP round winners.

The Stars of the Life Time Grand Prix

It would be unfair to say the LTGP has created all-new star racers – after all, it’s only in its third year. But what it has done is given more incentive, greater exposure, and offered a level of financial viability to some highly talented off-road endurance bike racers – and these big exposure events do attract the attention of sponsors.

Sure, many had heard of Keegan Swenson well before the series existed but the exposure and rewards gained from his victories in these events have taken him to a whole new level of prominence, and his partner Sofia Gomez Villafane has become well-known and valued far and wide since her series success.

Being part of the series has also helped Lachlan Morton’s standing along the way, as it has with most of the other riders selected. It would now also seem that reigning South African Gravel champion, XCM racer and 2024 Absa Cape Epic winner Matt Beers is also finding a liking and a prominent place for himself in the long-haul series, competing in events which suit his style of racing.

The selection process

There are 30 male and 30 female athletes selected to be part of the LTGP 2024 (there were 35+35 previously), with the first 15 overall from the previous year being automatically eligible to re-enrol.

Riders must apply during the off-season for the series selection. The selection process is not only based on athletic ability, but also on what racers can give back in terms of media, social media, and in-person presence, a method that was met with some scepticism and negativity by a few applicants in the early days, and still is by some, who believe selection should be purely on athletic ability.

All riders must prove that they have visas and logistics in place for all seven events (which can be an issue for non-US-based riders) and they must start at least five of the races (including the final round) to be eligible for the series, although if they miss one they can still compete in the races, not for GP points or prizes. Points are awarded to all finishers (35 for a win down to 1 for 30th) and riders are eligible for separate event prizes if they win them.

GP riders also need to commit to at least two fan engagements during the series, such as ride-outs or meet-the-rider sessions. Riders cannot be under a current doping ban – and random tests may happen during the series.

The big prize

The initial selling point for the series was its prize fund – which at $250,000 is believed to be the biggest payout in off-road racing, and this year the stakes have been raised to $300,000. The fund is split evenly between the top 10 overall finishers in both the male and female categories and is a best rounds results-based points scoring system. Series winners receive $30,00 each, while 10th place finishers overall get $7,000 each – and entry fees are also waived for GP riders.

Who is Life Time?

Few of us outside of North America will know what Life Time is as a company. Life Time, Inc (first registered as FCA Ltd in 1990) is based in Minnesota, USA. Over the years it has grown into a sizeable fitness-orientated company in the US and Canada, owning an estimated 160 athletic clubs and other facilities and more than 200 sporting events. In recent years it has also acquired all of the events in the LTGP series.

You can follow the series through its social media channels and at www.lifetimegrandprix.com.