Gravel Culture: Avoiding the gravelly honeypot

Olly packs up his travel gravel gear and heads away from the gravel riding hordes in search of adventure.

“Why the hell do you want to go and ride there?” queried my wife. “Because Francis said that he has put together a fantastic route with miles and miles of great gravel riding. Why?” was my slightly quizzical response. It turns out that the Durham Heritage Coast isn’t perhaps on the top of many gravel riders’ must do lists. Historically a very heavily industrialised area, it was infamous for being home to the largest opencast coal mine in Europe at one point and for starring in the climatic final scenes of the seminal 1970s film “Get Carter”, not to mention the opening scenes of Alien3.

Coal was mined in this region from the 1830s until the early 1990s and the waste material was dumped on the beaches – in places up to 12m thick. During the early 1990s, a rapid shift away from coal meant the mines were predominantly closed and vast sums of money were invested in the area to clean it up and to make it attractive for visitors. “So, what?” you are most likely thinking. Well, the benefit of the industrial history of this area is a legacy of gravel trails. The mines were linked to the coast via narrow gauge railways and many of these were turned into multi-user gravel trails when they closed during the 1990s. The network around the Durham coast is mind-bogglingly extensive and is an incredible resource for gravel riders looking for somewhere new to ride.

“Are you sure you want to go there? It’s not somewhere I would think of as an ideal gravel riding destination”. As an immigrant of eight years to the north-east of England, my geographical and historical knowledge is still slightly patchy. That can be a good thing in that I don’t have any bias towards one area or another, but can also lead to potential trouble if I end up riding through areas where an expensive gravel bike might be desirable for all the wrong reasons.

This is where local knowledge and dedication to finding the best possible gravel riding in the area comes in – welcome, left of stage, Francis. He and I spent almost the whole of 2020 mentally mapping the network of trails near where we live. He sent me a message back in March (when the trails were still ankle deep in slop) to say he had found a brilliant new gravel route, which headed south-east from Newcastle down to Seaham. When I mentioned this to my wife (who has lived in the north-east of England for most of her life), she was slightly incredulous at his choice of destination and doubted that he had really found gravel-mecca there.

Gravel riding in the UK, as elsewhere, is booming. The trails are increasingly full of riders on gravel bikes, both new entrants into the sport and cyclists from other disciplines who have caught the bug. This incredible growth has led to the creation of routes aimed specifically at gravel riders such as the King Alfred’s Way. The problem, albeit a nice one to have, is that these routes have proved to be so popular that they risk becoming overused. CyclingUK, who put together the King Alfred’s Way route have produced another brand new waymarked route aimed at gravel riders, but they are so concerned about it being overrun, that they’re not going to publish it until the the peak UK holiday season has finished!

In the never ending search for new gravel rides away from the herd, Francis’ route headed to a point where it practically said “here be dragons” on our mental trail maps. This sounded perfect - why would we even consider going and riding someone else’s (super popular) route, when we could have our own adventures, and stay much closer to home instead? Francis had finessed the route after his preliminary recce in March, so we set a date to go and try it out with a small group. The UK weather in early May was unusually cold – temperatures barely into double digits, with overnight frost, so everyone came dressed appropriately, with seat packs crammed with down jackets and spare gloves for our lunch stop.

Our ride, as with all good days out on a bike, kicked off with a quick slurp of espresso at our meet-up point on the Newcastle quayside. The first 10kms of the route were urban and through areas of light industry – not perhaps the most inspirational start to a ride, but a means to an end. Francis’ route research saw us using sections of bike path, interspersed with short sections of road. If you were to look at the route on the map, you wouldn’t even see a lot of the trails we took, let alone realise they were legal – often the shared-use trails are marked as footpaths on the OS map of the area (so not strictly legal to ride on in the UK), but on the ground they are signposted as shared-use by the local council, so are fair game.

We were soon onto more gravelly terrain – old railway tracks converted into shared-use trails. Despite riding through an essentially urbanised area, our trails were empty and surprisingly peaceful. It was only the second time Francis had ridden this route, so we had a few sections of searching for the best line (or even finding the trail at in a couple of spots), but a combination of digital mapping, good luck and well-tuned trail-hunting radar soon had us back on the right route. Gravel routes often weave their way across the landscape and there were numerous points where we simultaneously said “Oh, I know where we are now” as we popped out near a distinctive landmark, or crossed over a busy road that we recognised.

Our destination and lunch spot was Seaham. Formerly a major coal exporting hub, the town had since seen extensive investment to clean it up and to promote it as a tourist destination. Seaside fish&chips (what else) duly consumed, our route took us along the coast before heading inland, all on segregated bike paths. The combination of traffic-free riding and fantastic views left us with a very positive impression. As we climbed away from the coast, the sheer volume and high quality of the gravel trails in the area became apparent. There was a stretch of nearly 20kms between Seaham and Lambton which was essentially all on gravel trails. They varied from flowy vehicle width tracks to twisty singletrack to some urban snickets and, despite the occasional road to cross or set of steps to negotiate, offered a fantastic riding experience.

The weather forecast for the day had been all doom-and-gloom and as the day wore on, ominous looking clouds gathered on the horizon. Sure enough, mid-way through the afternoon the heavens opened and we suffered 20 minutes of torrential rain. We had initially sought shelter under some small trees, but with plummeting temperatures arriving with the rain, we decided that riding on and ignoring the weather was the best way to keep warm. Luckily, the storm was of the short-but-intense type and the sun soon burst through again, causing the roads to steam in places.

Not long after the sun had come back out and we had succeeded in finding a route through some wild garlic strewn urban woodland, we picked up the Consett and Sunderland Railway Path, which gave us another 10kms of uninterrupted gravel riding. The railway path climbed on a gentle gradient for most of this distance and, as it was so quiet, was ideal for chatting and looking at the passing scenery without having to concentrate too hard on the riding. By this point we had been out for just over 6 hours and were starting to flag a little. Luckily Francis knew of a fantastic outside bar where we could top up our energy reserves. Sadly for us though, it was very firmly closed on the day we were there, so we had to ride on.

Luckily fate was obviously on our side, as one short, steep climb later we came to a hotel adjacent to our route which had large outdoor tents set up and the staff were serving customers out there. Literally as we rolled into their carpark, the heavens opened again and the rain was so heavy it bounced off the floor. Shortly after we were sat in comfort, with cake and hot chocolate doing their best to revive flagging spirits, and feeling pretty happy about our good fortune. From the café stop onwards, we were firmly back within the boundaries of our mental trail map and a combination of a tail wind, homebound legs and known trails meant we flew along the last section of our route.

We arrived back at the Quayside with just over 90kms under our belts. It was one of those rides where the distance was immaterial and the riding experience was everything. I couldn’t honestly say what percentage of the route was tarmac versus off-road, but it felt like the vast majority of the route was traffic-free and the number of gravel trails was amazingly high. It was partly helped by the fact we had completed our ride on a Friday, rather than a busier weekend day, but we’d seen very few other riders and for vast sections of the route, we’d had the trail to ourselves. A combination of new trails, riding with good friends and consciously choosing to go off the edge of our mental trail maps had proved to be a winning combination.