The Journal
The routes we scout, the hotels we find, and honest, practical advice on what a week of hotel-to-hotel gravel actually involves.
The Stelvio doesn't break legs because it's steep. It breaks riders who stopped eating an hour before they reached it.
Read the post →Advanced is a grade only one of our seven routes actually carries. Here is what the word means, stage by stage, on the other six.
Read the post →Cyprus, coast to coast: from Larnaca's limestone hills to the Akamas headlands above Paphos, with the Troodos rising quietly in between.
Read the post →While the Alps and the Pyrenees are packing away for winter, the Western Cape is only just warming up. The best time for gravel cycling in South Africa runs on its own calendar entirely.
Read the post →Insurance, flights, a group of strangers who turn out to speak the same language you do — here's what actually happens between booking and the first pedal stroke.
Read the post →For centuries, mapmakers simply stopped here. The last stage of our Algarve crossing rides you to the edge they drew.
Read the post →Scotland doesn't have a packing list so much as a packing system — five things, worn in shifting combinations, that work whether the wind is coming off the Atlantic or the North Sea.
Read the post →A road that starts in Spain, touches France for a few kilometres, and returns to Spain before lunch — the second riding day of the Trans Pyrenees crossing.
Read the post →Five to twenty-five degrees, in one day, on one bike. The Alps don't ask you to pack for a season — they ask you to pack for a single stage that moves through several.
Read the post →Not more training. Different training — and three benchmark rides that answer the question better than any number of weekly hours.
Read the post →You sleep inside Florence, above Siena and in Brunello country. Four of the seven dinners are unbooked on purpose — this is the piece about those evenings.
Read the post →Seven stages, not five. The Western Cape does not ask for your best climb — it asks for the same solid day, six times running.
Read the post →One bag goes ahead, one small load stays with you. Getting the split right is the difference between riding a light bike and carrying a rucksack you did not need.
Read the post →Up the River Avon out of Scotland's highest village, into a glen with no road through it. The stage riders talk about afterwards.
Read the post →There is no dry season here. There is only a set of trade-offs — light against midges, warmth against wind — and September wins more of them than people expect.
Read the post →Not a broom wagon, not a taxi. The van is a workshop, a wardrobe and a lunch stop that happens to move — and knowing that changes how you pack.
Read the post →A road built to move soldiers, three centuries before anyone thought of riding it for pleasure. The day the Highlands stop being scenery.
Read the post →Five stages, four countries and up to 9,200 metres of climbing. The training that matters is not the long ride — it is the day after it.
Read the post →Metres of climbing per kilometre is the number that actually separates our routes. Here is how all seven rank, and what the ranking hides.
Read the post →Six beds, four countries, one crossing. The Alps read differently when you arrive somewhere new each evening and never carry a bag to get there.
Read the post →Sun that arrives early, dust that gets into everything, and thorns that end tubed tyres. A Western Cape packing list built around what actually goes wrong.
Read the post →Most of our riders are between 45 and 65. Here is what a week of gravel actually asks of you — and the three things worth changing before you go.
Read the post →Seven towns, farm kitchens and a vineyard dinner — the people and places behind a week of gravel cycling across South Africa's Western Cape.
Read the post →The bike almost always arrives fine. The riders who packed carefully are simply the ones not fixing a bent hanger in a hotel car park on day zero.
Read the post →The riders who fade on a week-long tour rarely run out of fitness. They run out of fuel. Here's how to eat and drink across back-to-back gravel days.
Read the post →Seven crossings, one week each. A route-by-route gravel tour comparison — difficulty, climbing, season and who each one suits — to help you choose.
Read the post →Some of the emptiest, most rideable gravel in Europe runs clean across Scotland — Atlantic to North Sea, on roads built two centuries before the bicycle. A full guide to the route, the riding and the week.
Read the post →Three landscapes in nine days — the Klein Karoo, the Overberg and the Cape Winelands — over the Victorian Swartberg Pass on some of the quietest gravel anywhere. A full guide.
Read the post →Nine days of gravel across South Africa — red earth, mountain passes, and roads where the landscape is measured in scale, not kilometres.
Read the post →One island, two coasts, and a cedar-forested mountain range in between — Larnaca to Paphos over the Troodos on gravel roads almost no one outside Cyprus has ridden. The full guide.
Read the post →Eight days crossing Cyprus from Larnaca to Paphos on the Trans Cyprus Gravel route — Troodos passes, vine villages, and the quiet of an island that does not hurry.
Read the post →A full crossing of southern Portugal on gravel — Tavira to Sagres, away from the resorts, through the cork-oak interior to the edge of Europe at Cabo de São Vicente.
Read the post →Eight days crossing southern Portugal, from Tavira to Sagres, where cork oak hills meet Atlantic wind and the road ends at the edge of Europe.
Read the post →One line drawn across a whole mountain range — San Sebastián on the Atlantic to Sant Pere Pescador on the Mediterranean, 780 km of mostly unpaved riding over eleven days.
Read the post →Eleven days, 780 km of gravel, and the mountains that separate two countries on a single bike — a crossing from San Sebastián to Roses.
Read the post →The Stelvio is a paved legend — but the gravel that surrounds it is the real story. How the famous pass anchors a four-country Alpine crossing on a gravel bike.
Read the post →Crossing the Alps on gravel bike: high passes, mountain valleys, and the moment when you realize your legs can do more than you thought.
Read the post →Most of Tuscany's photographs are taken low, in Chianti. The best riding sits higher — on the Apennine ridges, the climbs out of Pistoia, and the long descents into the Val d'Orcia.
Read the post →Three days navigating the Strade Bianche on 40mm tyres, chasing the fading light through Chianti — and the cruel final climb into Montalcino.
Read the post →Six of the best gravel cycling destinations in Europe — plus one beyond it — each a true coast-to-coast or country crossing, ridden hotel-to-hotel with the support van carrying the rest.
Read the post →Bikepacking, credit-card touring, or a fully supported hotel-to-hotel week — an even-handed comparison of what each really costs you in load, planning, risk and money, and which suits your kind of rider.
Read the post →Guided or self-guided? Both run the same routes, the same hotels and the same support van — the real choice is about navigation, pace and company. An honest comparison.
Read the post →What you actually get, and do, when you ride one of our routes self-guided: the GPX files, the devices, offline maps, what happens at a missed turn, and the support van still behind you.
Read the post →A season-by-season planning guide to our gravel tours — which destination rides best when, and why: weather, daylight, trail conditions, crowds and midges, mapped to the right week.
Read the post →Everything that turns a week of hard riding from a survival exercise into the best holiday you've had — fitness, bike, kit, logistics and a realistic countdown.
Read the post →How to build the endurance for mountain passes, long valley crossings, and the unexpected — so you're strong on day eight, not just day one.
Read the post →The bike that finishes a week of strade bianche, alpine military road and Highland estate track has nothing flash about it. Here's what actually matters — and what to stop overthinking.
Read the post →On a supported gravel tour the vehicle carries your bags. That is not a reason to fill them. What to bring, what to leave, and what you'll wish you had.
Read the post →Big-operator polish or do-it-yourself freedom — there's a third option. Here's what changes when the people who scouted the route are the people who answer your email.
Read the post →Guided versus self-guided, supported logistics, route difficulty, and what actually matters when you're deciding whether to join a gravel tour.
Read the post →Luggage moved each morning, a hotel waiting each evening, a vehicle on the road if you need it. Here's how a supported gravel week really runs.
Read the post →Guides, GPS routes, daily luggage transfer, a support van, hotels and food — and the things you still arrange yourself. The full included-versus-not list, stated plainly.
Read the post →Hotels booked, luggage moved, a van behind you and the route sorted — here's exactly what a supported gravel tour is, what's included, and how it compares to going it alone.
Read the post →
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Before you ride off
New routes, trip reports and quiet-season departure alerts — before anyone else. No spam, just the good gravel.
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