LA28 confirmed on June 9 that the Olympic cycling road races at the 2028 Los Angeles Games will start at Venice Beach Boardwalk and finish at Griffith Observatory, while the Olympic time trials will start at the Los Angeles Zoo and also finish at the Observatory. The Paralympic road cycling events, covering road race, time trial and mixed team relay, will start and finish at the LA Zoo.
Full route details for all road events will be published later in 2026. "Later this year, the remaining full course details for all road events will be unveiled," LA28 said.
The Olympic time trials are scheduled for July 19, 2028, with the road races on July 22–23. The Paralympic road cycling programme runs August 22–26.
Griffith Observatory sits at roughly 340 metres elevation in the Hollywood Hills, reached by a winding road that climbs through Griffith Park. An Observatory finish points toward a selective uphill finale rather than a flat sprint, though LA28 has not yet published the route's distance, elevation profile or any circuit details.
The time trial's start at the LA Zoo and finish at the Observatory places both ends of the course inside the Griffith Park Zone, suggesting a relatively tight circuit. How much of the course stays within the park, and how much ventures onto surrounding roads, remains unknown until the full route announcement.
Photo Credit: SunSlice Photography/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The road race, by contrast, will need to cover the roughly 25km between Venice Beach and Griffith Park, plus whatever additional distance the course requires. Olympic men's road races have typically run between 230km and 270km in recent editions, which would demand either a long approach route through Los Angeles or circuits before the final climb. The women's race has traditionally been shorter, at 130–160km.
Paralympic road events
LA28's decision to base all Paralympic road cycling at the LA Zoo simplifies logistics for the five days of competition. The zoo sits at the northern edge of Griffith Park, with road access to terrain that could accommodate both flat and rolling courses. The mixed team relay, a format introduced at the London 2012 Paralympics, will also use the LA Zoo as its start and finish.
The announcement is part of a broader LA28 update that also covered route timelines for the Olympic marathon, race walk, triathlon and their Paralympic equivalents. Course details for all of those events are due in the same later-in-2026 window.
For cycling, the Venice Beach to Griffith Observatory seems to tease a puncheur route with an elevation profile which will play to the WorldTour's best climbers. Tadej Pogačar did not attend the 2024 Olympics, in what was broadly understood to be a reaction to a snub of his fiancée Urska Zigart in the team selection. An uphill finish following a lumpy profile in the Hollywood hills may well lure the Slovenian to complete his palmarès.
Cover image credit: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
