There has been an issue in the UK cycling media for a few years, namely that it is shrinking. We had a huge surge in the decade following Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France, but pretty much since Team Sky became Ineos, we have seen a significant drop-off. Of course, many other issues affecting the media and publishers worldwide have also contributed to the struggle, but as I see it, this is an extra problem specific to the bike industry and cycling media in the UK.

It has meant that people and businesses may have been forced to make decisions to stay afloat that don’t necessarily sit as comfortably as they would like. The website I’m writing this article on is no different – it has taken advertising money from companies based in China, a country where labour standards are not always verifiable and human rights are a huge concern. 

I happened to be flicking through Instagram the other day and noticed a video about a new region of the world that is “cycling heaven” and has “amazing scenery”. Wow! How have I never heard about this Eden before? Oh… because it’s in Saudi Arabia. And the ‘gravel ride’ being discussed in the video is actually sand. And it mostly just shows a couple of clearly uncomfortable presenters riding on a bike path.

That’s right. GCN decided to sell their souls and send journalists to Saudi Arabia to film several puff pieces (the full gravel video is on YouTube here) about an abandoned desert settlement called AlUla, which is apparently cycling heaven (and current co-sponsor of the Jayco–AlUla pro cycling team, of course), but actually looks like one of the most unpleasant places on earth to go cycling. Saudi. Arabia. A country run by a man who famously ordered the murder of a journalist, and who it’s estimated has had a fairly consistent 25-30 journalists in jail at any one time since 2017. 

There are arguments to be made about whether it is valid to advertise on behalf of what I would consider a murderous regime. The arguments are generally pretty one-sided in my opinion, but maybe that’s just me. 

Perhaps you could argue that advertising somewhere that is amazing for cycling despite being in an oppressive country is valid – after all, GCN is in the business of producing videos about cycling, for cyclists. Belarus has some absolutely incredible cycling routes, even if Aleksandr Lukashenko is a dictator who I think has done some awful things. 

However, there is a difference when you are being paid by a murderous regime to advertise what is clearly an embarrassingly bad place for cycling. If your gravel cycling video is mainly filmed whilst you’re cycling on a bike path, then that’s not gravel riding, let alone gravel heaven. 

I was going to give a blow-by-blow of the video, but I don’t think I need to, because it literally boils down to two men riding in heat so oppressive that they need to wear CamelBaks to stay hydrated. The beautiful scenery is sand with rock formations in, and the viewpoint they end the video on seems thoroughly unremarkable, looking over what appears to be quite a bleak desert, and a couple of equally unimpressive towns. However, we’re told they are glad they could show us the beauty of it and how impressed they are.

I know the industry is in a particularly difficult spot, and that some companies need to make money where they can – but surely a line must be drawn in the Saudi Arabian sand. In no world should a cycling media company need to be shilling for a country whose dictator orders the killing of journalists, has capital punishment for homosexuality, and whose women are forced to get permission from men to do basic everyday tasks. 

When you are doing that to advertise a place so crap for cycling that you can’t even edit together a video that makes it look half passable, that is beyond embarrassing.