| Dates | 17–19 Apr 2026 |
|---|---|
| Location | France, Pôle Mécanique Alès Cévennes |
| Where it counts | FIM World Championship (HEWC) round 1 of 8 |
| Official site | https://www.24mx-alestrem.com/ |
Three days at the Pôle Mécanique Alès Cévennes near Alès in southern France. The event has run since 2015, but 2026 was its first year on the FIM world championship calendar — and it was handed the season opener straight away. The organisers describe it as a new era: more than 75% of the course was rebuilt and pulled in around the venue, giving a lap of roughly 30 km. Even as a world round it stays open to amateurs, who ride the same course as the champions. The format has three stages. Friday’s Xtrem Test is a time trial of about 15 minutes with riders released one at a time at 20-second intervals; up to 450 entrants get two runs and keep the better time. The top 100 go through to Saturday’s Minerva Prologue, with 101st to 201st sent to a second chance. Saturday is head-to-head racing from a motocross-style grid in a super enduro format — five heats, two semi-finals and a final. Sunday is the main event: the national race at 08:00 (four categories — RED, BLUE, PINK, GREEN — over three laps of green tape), then the World Race (FIM HEWC) in the afternoon for the top 150. The World Race uses a Le Mans start, sending away 15 waves of 10 riders at two-minute intervals, with green tape for lap one and harder blue tape for laps two and three, to a limit of four hours.
Mani Lettenbichler (KTM) won in 3h40m50s, from Billy Bolt (Husqvarna, +48s) and Teodor Kabakchiev (Sherco, +6m49s). Heavy rain on the Sunday forced a mid-race course change, and in the confusion the instruction never reached Lettenbichler at the front while the riders behind him diverted to the finish area. Bolt was declared the winner at first, before the FIM jury overturned it by taking the order at the checkpoint before the change. Bolt, who had won the prologue, led the championship by a single point after round one.
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