Does anybody actually have “Gravel Roads” near them?

Yes, loads, plus I’ve plotted

Yes, loads, plus I’ve plotted a few routes recently either using Google Map or Strava where what appeared to be a road turned out to be farm track of some sort. Thankfully it’s been winter so I’ve been on my ‘gravel’ bike (my singlespeed drop bar commuter with 38c tyres) and it’s been a fun diversion off the tarmac.

Problem is I don’t want to use my singlespeed for the sort of long hilly routes I’ve planned for the summer, makes me wish I could fit bigger than 25mm tyres on my road bike, next bike will  definitely be ‘gravel’!

Lots of them here, Mersey

Lots of them here, Mersey valley/Chorlton Water Park.

Loads.

Loads.

Whole mix of wide well-surfaced old railway lines converted to leisure use, forest / moorland fireroads, farm tracks, access tracks and then a mix of bridleways some of which fall more towards the “full on MTB” end of the spectrum but plenty of which would be covered under the generic “gravel road/track” description.

I use my CX bike but it’s set up with tubeless 38c G-One tyres which are definitely more gravel road tyres than CX race tyres.

I’m inbetween Bristol and the

I’m inbetween Bristol and the Mendips – no gravel roads here really.

There’s a few gravel access roads in a couple of the woods on the Mendips, and a couple of the local cycle paths follow old railway lines, which are sort of gravelled.

Most the routes are simply too muddy or stoney to be ridden (enjoyably) on anything other than a MTB.

there’s a few round here on

there’s a few round here on the South Downs, although loose stone over hardpacked dirt might be a more apt, if longwinded description

that said, i’m not sure i’ve ever been up an actual mountain on my Mountainbike, but when someone says the word i know exactly what they mean without having to read a page long explanation about what they are, much like the way the catch-all genre descriptive term ‘Gravel Bike’ is used nowadays

I have the Grizedale forest

I have the Grizedale forest between home and work, and this has miles of ‘gravel’ trails – they are a destination for MTBers, and I have ridden them on my hardtail. I wouldn’t take a full blown road bike on them, but I suspect a ‘gravel’ bike would fair okay on them, as would a cyclocross set up. They aren’t really a thoroughfare though, they just tend to criss-cross each other, although I have diverted from the tarmac road to them and bypassed a few miles of tarmac, but they certainly aren’t a viable short cut. Good fun though, and nice to be in a really quiet part of the Lakes at this time of year (different after Easter I imagine).

There is an interesting article in the latest Cyclist Magazine, where three ‘gravel/adventure’ bikes are ridden and reviewed, and the terrain they go on seems to vary from tarmac to gravel tracks to bridleways, definitely more ‘off-road’ than just gravel roads.

Yup – New Forest hardpack

Yup – New Forest hardpack gravel access roads which are superb to ride on. Wide, grippy, well drained, even at this time of year. Only downside is the network isn’t joined up and not all of the roads are open access for cyclists. Bit of a campaing going on at the moment to change that. 

Then north of me I’ve got the whole of Salisbury Plain to play on – flinty, chalky, wide-packed tracks mainly. There’s also a bunch of drover’s roads south and west of Salisbury meaning you can almost get to Shaftesbury without using tarmac roads.