Glorious Gravel

Standing in the shower, cleaning my teeth - I’ve always been a multi-tasking type - I found myself unexpectedly crunching on a bit of grit. It took a second for realisation to dawn, and I started to grin when it did.

It’d been 24 hours since my gravel adventure in the most northern part of England, an escapade innocuously instigated by Matt from the Product team with the innocent inquiry, ‘Do you fancy doing a gravel sportive?’ “Sure, why not” was my reply, a simple three-word utterance that has, for time immemorial, got millions of middle-aged blokes like me sucked, unknowingly, into activities they are not prepared for….

Now more interested in using bikes to explore than for speed, I was quick to join the trend when gravel bikes first became a thing. The extra tyre width, grip, and a more forgiving gear selection gave me what I needed to reinvent the Wirral Peninsula where I live. Now, I can stitch quiet lanes together, avoiding the ever-increasing traffic, a capacity that has brought a welcome new perspective to my home area.

My pledge to participate was also born of a desire to ween myself off the home trainer, a device easy to become enslaved to. Spending most of my time in London now, working on cycling-related transport matters, I needed a challenge that required me to extend my range past 30 minutes and move from healthy to fit.

Having accepted the invitation, weekend rides made a comeback. Over a few weeks, forays extended beyond the confines of the peninsula, across the Dee Estuary into North Wales, where I discovered a ton of new places to ride I’d never experienced in all my tarmac-bound training years as a pro.

The event all this was in aid of was The Dirty River, whose name has fascinating origins you can explore for yourself. It was first run back in 2016 and takes full advantage of the 1000 miles of forestry trails around Kielder Forest in Northumberland. Participants are provided with three challenging hilly options covering 65km, 130km or a monstrous 200km. Having recalibrated my off-road speed expectations on the Welsh trail equivalent, I opted early for the middle mission, which would still take me around 6 to 7 hours to complete.

I’ve done a few sportives in my time, but the mandatory kit list highlighted the difference between this and a normal-mass start event. This was not going to be, as I’d been thinking of it, a bumpy sportive.’ As well as the usual nutritional advice, the note clarified that every person setting out had to be in possession of: A full set of trail tools, a survival blanket, an emergency whistle and a set of lights with at least two hour burn time. The need for this self-sufficiency was due to the truly remote setting, I didn’t think there were places left in the UK with zero phone signal, but this is the case in Kielder. Help was not just a phone call away.

The extra paraphernalia brought a new purchasing problem. Where do I put it all….? After much Googling, I opted for under-top tube transportation, mostly because I thought it made the bike I’d been riding for almost two years - an ADV 9.0 - suitably rugged.

To prepare for the challenging terrain, I upped the girth of my tyres for more grip and suspension and added a third bottle cage to ensure fluid independence. My machine was now loaded like a Paris-Dakar entry, with a spare wheel on the bonnet. And extra headlights on the roof. I felt very manly.

The endeavour proved perversely popular and grew into a Team Boardman/Halfords joint exercise, and a WhatsApp group was instigated. The chatter slowly evolved from who’s done what training to what the weather was likely to do on the day. With a week to go, it was looking increasingly likely that our endeavour would be surrounded by sun, but the event itself would be moist (or ‘dreich’ as they’d say, just over the Border). This prompted a new thread on what to wear, and everyone stuffed even more clothing options into already stuffed bags for the trip North….

Having lived without a car for a long time, the 250-mile drive to Northumberland was my longest behind the wheel in over four years. I begrudgingly confess that, with the sun shining, radio and roads almost void of traffic, it was a delightful journey that brought back many memories.

When riding a bike for a living, I discovered The Border Country on a post-season holiday with the family. Autumn bike rides around the top of Kielder had been a revelation, so much so that we went back every year for over a decade. Turning off the M6 and back into this ‘slower-time territory’ felt like coming home. I pulled up at the event HQ right outside the wonderful Kielder Castle. Scores of people were busy setting up for the arrival of the expected 1,500 riders and their families. As wonderful as the wilds are, by definition, they seldom come with copious accommodation options. Tepees were being erected to house some of the participants, whilst space for hundreds of camper vans and campers was marked out. The rest of us - who are rather wedded to our flushing toilets and showers - had hoovered up every bed and ensuite option in the area.

6 am on Saturday, and the alarm chirped. The day of the Dirty River had arrived. I tentatively drew the curtains back and was pleasantly surprised it wasn’t raining. But being both a pessimist and nesh, I still opted for full waterproofs and neoprene over-socks. Billy Connelly’s jocular advice - ‘there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing’ - has always been my maxim, and later that day, I would remain immensely grateful to the Scottish comedian for his wisdom-laden one-liner.

Porridge downed, we headed off for the start line to assemble with the masses for the 7:45 start time. There was all manner of bikes, clothing choices, shapes and sizes ready to tackle the day. My game plan was clear in my mind; I’d break it into three chunks, take it steady at the start - keep the ego in check - go nice and easy in the middle and don’t over-extend for the last part!

As the klaxon sounded, we poured over the start line and down the hill away from the historic castle. There were clearly three prevalent mindsets for the day. The ‘just smash it tribe (The JSI’s) overtook the masses at every opportunity using any means possible, including the sharp-edged shale down the centre of the man-made forest trails. The settle-in-sensibly (SIS’s) mob, a club I considered myself a member of and the kitchen sink club (KSC), each adorned with at least half a dozen bags and enough food for a small army, settled into their easy chugging pace for the day. This latter contingent was a broad church, with membership consisting of first-timers, who’d probably agreed to ride whilst in a pub with mates, to the true outdoors types prepared for anything from heavy rain to hurricanes.

The opening kilometres turned from tarmac to single track as the event twisted and turned around the small village of Kielder to thin out the numbers. Eventually, we headed South on our first climb of the day and our first lumber trail.

Although road-width, these tracks were two adjacent 80cm strips of smoother, rideable stones, compressed by the heavy logging vehicles, separated by a patch of loose, often sharp rocks down the centre.

We had been lucky to kick off in dull but dry conditions, but 10km in, the inevitable happened the rain began to fall.

The early starting KSCs were slowly falling back through the ranks, whilst my SIS brethren and I found ourselves constantly buzzed by late starting JSI’s smashing through the middle on the rough stones. Many of these we then passed as they stood at the side of the road fixing the self-induced punctures. ‘Darwinism in action’, someone mused. (OK, it was me).

But maybe that’s the beauty of these open-to-all events. You arrive with your own purpose. Many made the pilgrimage to ‘smash it’ and beat as many other people as possible. Others participated for a personal challenge, yet more just came along to be with friends and enjoy the views. Over the course of a lifetime, I’ve been a member of every group and thoroughly enjoyed each phase.

Over 2 hours and 50km in, we arrived at the first feed zone, a mass of humanity chatting, scrambling to fill bottles and ramming bananas down. Tea and coffee were available, but this was largely consumed by members of the KSC who had plenty of time for such sociable pursuits.

Re-fueled, it was off again, surrounded by different people to chat to on the ever-muddier tracks. My bike and I were now layered in the fine thin silt, and with all oil washed away, my transmission was starting to sound a bit crunchy. But the bike was comfortable, even on the ever-repeating climbs. I was amazed that caked in mud and sporting a full beard, how many people pulled up to say hello and have a chat - a few I knew from my active travel world, some were still involved in racing, and there were even a few faces from decades earlier wanting to reminisce about racing in our youth.

I was secretly very pleased with my personal clothing choice, which had proved perfect for the moist and muddy conditions. Well, not that secretly, I told everyone who’d listen. Wet, warm and grimy, we finally broke the 100km barrier and arrived at the second stop. The familiar feeding frenzy was now supplemented by lots of JSI’s seeking mechanical support for their racing machines, many of which were not proving up to the conditions. 

Now 5 hours in, or thereabout, my watch had stopped working, and I was drained, so it was a cruel twist of fate to realise my accommodation - containing an excellent shower full of hot water - was just 300m away from where I was trying to swallow my four hundredth piece of malt loaf. But my ego kicked to prevent me from exiting stage right, and I pushed off with my fellow travellers on the final leg. Curving back towards the castle, we now had regular views of the mist-covered expanse of Kielder water, and the trails had become slightly kinder in both size and surface. A bit more than an hour later, we came across the sign I’d seen whilst browsing the internet for details of the event and the one I’d been waiting for the 130km turn-off point.

This was a significant moment for many who’d started the trek with aspirations of covering the full 200km. It was time to make the hard choice. For those that pressed on, there were another five hours of riding ahead of them. I’d made this call back in December and had zero qualms about heading for home after a quick natter with the marshal. The final few kilometres were the first I’d spent alone since we’d begun, and a bit of solitude was a nice way to draw the day to a close. I trundled along the water’s edge on some beautifully maintained family trails, and before I knew it, I popped out of the forest facing the event area with just one little rise left to the line.

And that was it. After several hours in the saddle, all types of weather experienced and a hundred short conversations later, the adventure came to a close amongst many mud-spattered but satisfied faces. It had been a meticulously well-organised affair, with good signage and support throughout, and most importantly, there was a huge amount of food and drink waiting to greet the tired travellers. The weather, too, had dried for the après-ride activities, enticing everyone to linger and share stories of the day with newfound friends and fellow adventurers.

Heading home with a car full of clothes so caked in grime it was touch and go if they were salvageable, I reflected on my experience and the concept of ‘gravel’

Having ridden bikes for a lifetime, it’s wonderful to discover a new facet of cycling, a way to use this incredible machine in yet another life-enhancing way. In a sense this, still-to be-properly-defined ‘gravel’ experience is what the bike community has been waiting for, a new twist that not only reinvigorates the activity for lifelong practitioners it could open up cycling to a whole new audience.