Having ridden my gravel bike in lovely places like Girona, the US, and Wales, my local gravel can feel a bit, well, lacking. But how bad is it really? I thought we’d find out by playing a little game of the road is lava.
I was to start in the gloriously-named village of Nether Wallop, with the mission being to get back to road.cc HQ in Bath, taking in as many gravel trails as possible.
To make things interesting, I was afforded a whole £30 to spend on a pizza at the end of the day. But, for every tarmac road I touched, I’d lose £1. So, just like the game we all played as kids, the floor is lava, and the floor is made of tarmac.
My setup
Frame: Gloria All Gravel Titanium
Groupset: SRAM Force AXS XPLR
Wheels: Yoeleo SAT C45 DB Pro NxT Gravel
Tyres: Vittoria Terreno T90
Pedals: Funn Clast
The bike I rode was Gloria’s All Gravel, a first experience of a titanium frame for me and it didn’t disappoint, with the handling matching the lovely raw finish.
With ample space for 2.1″ tyres creating a pretty long wheelbase and a 71.5 degree head angle, I found that I was having great fun on the steep, techy descents that litter the area. But I did make a setup mistake, opting to leave the 40mm Vittoria Terreno T90 tyres on my Yoeleo C45 wheels.
These tyres have been excellent through a very muddy winter and looking at the forecast, I was expecting some rain, so I left them set up. In the end they were too knobbly for the largely dry gravel and not wide enough for the descents, where I never felt fully able to let go.
A new component to me were the Clast pedals from Funn. The design combines an SPD on one side with a flat, studded pedal on the other. While I’ve always gone for a cageless dual-sided SPD pedal for gravel duties, adventure riding like this can often involve quite a bit of walking. Getting going again on a steep slope was much easier with a flat pedal to quickly stamp down on.
Things I saw en route
A rest of the world signpost
First on my little tour of interesting things came soon after I left our starting point of Nether Wallop. Had we chosen this location purely because it was a funny name? Yes.
But close by, I found this lovely sign and it was off to see the rest of the world.
Old Roman road
Leaving the village of Winterslow, I picked up the Venta Sorviodunum, a Roman road dating back to the time of, you guessed it, the Romans.
There are plenty of these roads dotted about Britain, though they are often intersected by tarmac roads, which presented me with both a problem, and an opportunity to cheat.
In cases where I had to turn onto a road and rejoin the gravel after a few hundred meters, I had no choice but to lose some pizza money. But there are places where the byway continues immediately on the opposite side of the road.
Here, I decided that picking the bike up and running across the road didn’t count as riding it, so I couldn’t lose any money. Don’t go picking holes in the rules of the game that I came up with.
Stonehenge
Next up was the world famous sight of Stonehenge and I’d strongly recommend adding it to your ride plans this summer. A byway passes to the west which, once you’ve hopped over a standstill A303, offers excellent views of the neolithic structure.
I had intended on getting a bit of drone footage from our (somewhat cursed) HoverAir. Unfortunately, it decided to crash into a bush on a trail and despite 30 minutes of searching, I couldn’t find it.
I’ll take this chance to apologise for the quality of the above photo. While videographer Andrew was jumping ahead of me to shoot various locations, we didn’t want the hassle of meeting at Stonehenge. Therefore, my phone and the DJI Action 5 were my only camera options available.
Military firing range
The next feature of the route brought a change in gravel. The Salisbury Plain military firing range brings more of a North American vibe with large, open gravel roads that are often populated by tanks on training manuveurs.
The MOD has put the area on a heightened state of alert given the state of world politics, so I was expecting to find the red flags flying and half of my route to be out of bounds.
Thankfully, the flags were down and I was able to access the perimeter path without issue. Or so I thought.
A weather front had pushed its way across the UK a little earlier than forecast, bringing 40mph winds which, in such an open space, went unchallenged. Had I been travelling the opposite way, I’d have been trucking along, but instead I crawled into the jaws of what was becoming an increasingly cold headwind.
Kennet and Avon canal path
After getting down off Salisbury Plain, I was a little more sheltered from the wind, but I was once again picking my way between villages using whatever ‘gravel’ I could find.
My target of Trowbridge was intentional. Here I was able to jump onto the Kennet and Avon canal path, giving me a peaceful and largely undisturbed gravel highway all the way to the centre of Bath.
It isn’t the best gravel riding in the world with the path being very busy in the summer, but today it served a purpose. A pizza purpose.
How much pizza money was left?
Surprisingly, I ended the day with a whopping £14. Now, a cynic would say that if I’d been honest in crossing each road I came to and counting paved bike paths, there would be no money left at all.
But I made the rules, mostly to ensure I had some pizza money left. So there.
What can’t be argued is what a jolly good time I had. The gravel riding was excellent, ranging from wide open spaces where the wind battered me, to tight and techy paths that the Romans trod many years ago.
However, unlike my favourite gravel destinations of South Wales, Girona and Oregon, my local gravel is a little less local. The best option I’ve found is to take the train out to the start of a ride and then head for home.
But that’s not so different to how local mountain bikers do their weekend rides, with most I know regularly loading the bike into their van and heading for the nearest trail centre.
P.S. For anyone concerned, I went back the following day and found the drone. It lives to fight another day.
7 thoughts on “The road is lava: Is it even possible to have a proper off-road cycling adventure in the UK?”
Great video and even nicer bike. Shame you didn’t talk about it a bit more. No mechanicals in the video so I guess it survived unscathed? I’ve ridden a bit round Salisbury Plain which was fantastic. Sadly I am not local, but one day will be back.
Not sure AI slop needs an image credit
“Is it even possible to have a proper off-road cycling adventure in the UK?”
Article answers its premise in the first sentence…
“Having ridden my gravel bike in lovely places like Girona, the US, and Wales”
Not really – they could have ridden their gravel bike on the road – it wouldn’t make Wales any less lovely.
What a dumb headline. One which would come as a surprise to folk doing just that for the 40 years.
I’d also say there were more ‘gravel’ trails around the UK than there are strictly MTB trails. They weren’t used by roadies simply because they are off road and ignored by MTBers as they weren’t challenging enough.
Pretty much the entire canal network is gravel bike territory, loads of country roads are rather gravelly, have grass growing down the middle etc. Then there’s farm tracks, forest roads, byways, BOATs, moor roads and so on. Most of which would be called gravel roads in the US. We just have way more names for basically the same thing. Not to mention roads linking gravel sections are not even an issue on a gravel bike and was something that was toted as being a big advantage over riding an MTB. Unless they’ve become an MTB all over again, which many have.
Many ‘gravel’ rides around here [Sheffield/Peaks] are done on old XC routes. Gravel riding is basically just non techy MTBing.
There were a fair few people riding up Sa Calobra last week on Mountain bikes, which kind of make sense because it is a mountain, as it is a road. Then there were people riding up there on Gravel bikes. Idiots. There was no gravel.
Were there any angry people on cyclocross bikes?