Gravel Biking - What's all the fuss about?

I'm going to start this all off with an admission, I never understood gravel riding until recently. I used to have a cyclo-cross (CX) bike and ride on local bridal ways which were all churned up by horses hooves. I didn't like it, so I sold the bike.

To me, gravel biking was something the Americans did, due to the thousands of miles of unpaved roads they have. Our country is much smaller, and as such all we have are the odd forestry fire road and short, churned up, bridal ways.

However, I then opened a bike shop and knew I needed to stock gravel bikes, as it turned out gravel bikes are really popular in the UK. My (cycling) friends constantly raved about their gravel experiences. It was time to go out on a proper gravel ride and see what they were all harping on about.

I got onto Komoot and penned a ride around the Cotswolds, utilising many of the tracks I'd ridden my XC bike on during numerous HONC rides. Luckily, I also have a subscription to OS maps, which is a must if you need to keep things legal in England.

The weather was mostly dry, so three of us set off for what turned out to be one of the most fun rides I've had in a long old while. I discovered that there's a big difference between a CX bike and a modern gravel bike. I ran 45mm wide tyres on a frame with a slack front end, a far cry from the 33mm tyres and twitchy steering of the CX bike.

We didn't worry about speed, decided on an extra café stop, and took in the breath-taking Cotswold scenery. It's fair to say, I was converted. All of the trails that are a little tame for the mountain bike, were perfect for the gravel bike. As soon as you're on the trails you can relax, and focus on your riding without the worry of road traffic.

You realise how lovely and quiet everything is. There's no need to check your speed or an other metrics. Go fast if you want, or chill out and admire the British countryside.

What's the moral of this tale? I guess it boils down the to same thing you could say of all activities. Get the right tool for the job, and there's fun to be had. My tool for the day was my Reilly Gradient you see in the photo below (taken on Cleeve Common).

My next ride will be on my Basso Palta, swapping out titanium for carbon fibre. The other big difference will be the gearing.

As you can see in the photo, the Reilly has a front mech and a road cassette. The chainset is a sub-compact, meaning a 30T little chain ring driving a 33T largest sprocket on the rear. At the other end, there's a 43T chain ring potentially driving a 10T teeny sprocket.

What does this mean? It means I can climb hills, whilst maintaining good road speed without big jumps in cadence between each shift. The downside? Added complication (some will debate this) and more to get clogged up on muddy days.

The Palta runs a "one-by" setup, with a single 40T chain ring and a 10-44T cassette. I'll be running some 40mm Schwalbe G-Ones over the Hutchinson Touareg 45mm on the Reilly. On another day I'll try switching those around as the Palta can handle both tyre widths.

It'll be interesting to see just what difference there is in the real world between both setups.

Maybe, one day, I'll try some bike-packing adventures. That will depend on whether the same friends mentioned above can also convert me to enjoying sleeping in a tent. I fear this will be a much harder task. Time will tell.