Cross-country Olympic (XCO) Course Preview with Shimano | 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships

Ride along with Switzerland’s own @JolandaNeffMountainbike in this XCO Course Preview for the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Valais, Switzerland 🇨🇭 (30 Aug – 14 Sept), presented by @RideShimano.

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#Valais2025

Hi, I’m Jolanda Neff
and I’m here in Valais, Switzerland, in the beautiful village of Crans-Montana. This is where the 2025 UCI 
Mountain Bike World Championships will take place. The cross-country Olympic course is 3.8 km long, has 160 m of elevation and some incredibly technical sections in it. Come along for a tour on track and check it out. The start will be given in the centre of Crans-Montana. After the start sprint, riders will turn left
and enter the forest and start climbing. There are very rooty technical climbs and most of all, the gradient is incredibly steep. It takes all your power to climb up here. And it just keeps climbing. We climb all the way until we hit the Timber Garden about midway through the course. Welcome to the Timber Garden! Obviously, this whole piece here is made of wood. You drop out and you land on wood, which is a very tricky section. You have four different line options. So, if you don’t like the wood, you go on the outside. You might be a bit slower, but the wood here is for the experts. This will be a great zone for the fans to watch. After the Timber Garden, there is a very long and very tricky off-camber section with lots of roots that takes us back to the main road. We then hit the second climb which is very long and very hard and takes us all the way up to the lake on top of the hill. From there, there is spectacular views
of the surrounding mountains. However, I’m not sure we’re going 
to have time to check them out during the race. At the Lac de Chermignon, we will reach the highest point of the track. There’s a lot of climbing until here, and this is going to be a seriously cool spot to watch the race. There will be giant screens and plenty of food options. And after this, we’re going to hit some jumps, berms, and the famous rock garden. This is the famous Rock Garden, a key section of the race because you’re going to be at 180 maximum heart rate after having done a long brutal climb and then next thing you know, you got 
to master this crazy rock garden. So, this is going to be a very cool spot
to watch the race unfold. Look how beautiful this is! This is the Waterfall section, the last key section of the course. Very steep, very fast, and very technical to ride. We have an A-line and a B-line. They are both hard to ride, but the B-line takes longer. From here on, it’s a high-speed section that takes us all the way to the finish line. We hit the main road and then it’s a big big sprint for the win. This is it here in Crans-Montana for the
course preview. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. The track is very technical, incredibly steep, and only the best mountain biker in the world will win here and become the world champion. I hope you will join us here in September for the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. Thank you for watching and see you soon.