I’m thinking about dipping my toe into gravel riding to rediscover some of the sense of adventure I had when doing mtb-ing and cross in the 90s as a kid.
The problem is, where I live in the UK, it’s not immediately obvious where the gravel is… sure there are some local bridleways, a towpath network, and some managed woods, but all are busy and won’t be ideal for riding at any effort/pace. And yes, I know the answer to a degree is ‘go and explore’, but I wondered if there were any apps/sites that helped with ‘gravel finding’
My ideal aim is to replace my 2.5hr Friday road ride with a ‘groad’, where I could ride for 20-40 minutes to the gravel, ride there for approx 90 minutes, then ride back.
Happy to provide rough UK location details if that helps.
Absolutely not offering anything useful, but when I read the title, my immediate thought was “Check your local DIY shop.”
Komoot is a good option, as suggested. You can select (I think) preferred surface type and it should produce gravel/hardpack roads suitable for what you’re looking for.
I had the same issue a while back, Komoot is good I also found Strava’s route creation tool on the mobile app good if you’ve got a premium account. Set the filter the “Dirt”, “Any” elevation and make the distance pretty big, 80km-160km. This is helpful to identify where the gravel is rather use the route it spits out as verbatim.
Top tip though, if you have a windfarm near you head straight for that, there’s usually endless gravel tracks open to the public connecting the turbines. I’m lucky to have have one just down the road from me. Keep an eye on the weather though, they to tend to be… windy.
Depends where you live. There isn’t much of the US-type gravel in the UK, for example there are very few gravel roads. Often re-purposed old railway lines can be good, or in the NE there are more off road roads. Scotland too maybe. Otherwise, farm tracks and fire roads in large wooded areas. Most of it though will either be compacted soil (gravel long gone), tarmac, or, in the hills, very rough gravel that is probably better on a MTB.
Yes, and there are some of the long distance routes on bridle ways listed. As @splash said, lots of different surfaces, and will vary throughout the ride, perhaps more so than in other geographically larger countries.
Also quite a lot of what is listed is canal towpath, at least where I live. In my area (West Yorkshire) there are quite a few good off road biking routes but very little of it would be called gravel.
A friend and I were out on a ride the other weekend and the canal towpath on our route was absolutely packed. I think I got more track standing practice than I did any riding along it!
Komoot is good for info on trail surface but I find it infuriating trying to put routes together on it. I think it’s strength is point to point routes where you stick a start and end in, let it pick a route and then amend as you wish. If you’re used to RideWithGPS where you build a route up clicking point to point you’ll struggle (at least that’s my experience).
I ask local bike shops for routes. They can usually share a few. Often with gps files.
I also use RideWGPS website and search on the keyword “gravel”
Good luck. I absolutely love riding gravel for the reasons you stated. Being alone in the country, low traffic, the feeling of adventure, etc., so much that I’m going to sell my Tarmac because I never ride it anymore. But, I’ve heard it’s hard to find real gravel in the UK (as others have mentioned above)
If you live near any Forestry Commission sites there will likely be a few miles of gravel ‘fire’ roads you can link up, possibly using quiet lanes or minor roads. There enough FC sites within a few miles of my house that I could easily do a 50m ride made up of 50/50 gravel and country lanes.
