Miquel Gelabert finished the 2026 TrialGP World Championship fifth overall on the only electric bike in the premier class. Sunday at Pobladura was the one day it didn’t come together.

Fifth in the world. Miquel Gelabert ended the 2026 TrialGP World Championship at Pobladura de las Regueras on Sunday sixth on the day and fifth overall for the season — riding the only electric bike in the premier class, every round, against factory combustion machinery.

Sunday was the hard one. Gelabert took fiascos (maximum penalties of five points) in sections one and three of Race 1 and posted 28 marks for fifth. The Super Pole went no better: he clocked a time of 1:00.00 and incurred five penalty points, resulting in a total time of 1:05.00 — eighth quickest. Then a crash in Zone 5 of Race 2 ended it, and he rode out the remaining sections on fives for seventh. Sixth on the day.

Saturday had shown the other side of it. A scrappy Race 1 — fives on Zones 1 and 2, clean on 3, penalties on 4 — left him fifth on 30. Race 2 was the reply: clean through the first two zones, a single five on Zone 3, and 18 marks for third, his fourth race podium of the season. Fourth on the day, and 285 points.

That is the shape of the year. The race pace was there — thirds in Italy, France, the Netherlands and again on Saturday in Spain — but the day-overall podium never came. Fifth in the championship, on an electric bike in its first season.

“The season has been very positive,” Gelabert said, describing a year in which the team “got closer and closer” while the podium “ultimately eluded us.”

Team manager Carles Barneda put it the same way before the finale: the assessment of the first season is positive, and the team has shown it can compete with the top riders.

What that means in practice is worth spelling out. In a sport where pin-point power control is everything, the RTL Electric’s mechanical clutch and flywheel answer one of the most common criticisms of electric bikes — that they can’t launch off the clutch or carry flywheel momentum the way a combustion bike can. Honda took that bike into the premier class for a full season against the combustion machines of Bou, Busto and Marcelli, and it came out fifth. Toni Bou’s twentieth consecutive TrialGP title was decided at Zelhem a fortnight ago; Gabriel Marcelli won the final day at Pobladura to take the runner-up spot.

The RTL Electric will be back for 2027. On this evidence, the podium is not a question of whether the bike can, but ultimately who is riding it. And no-one seems likely to beat Bou anytime soon, whatever they are riding!

Sources: honda.racing, 19 and 20 September 2026 · trialgp.com round 7 preview · FIM