Gravel Culture: Gravel touring with a difference
Posted By Gravel Union
On 4 November 2020
Defining exactly what is and isn’t gravel can be a contentious issue at times and this won’t help add any clarity to the discussions, but it might improve the quality of your day!
Every Friday morning on the Gravel Union Facebook page we post a gravelly-film in a slot we’ve called #FilmFriday. Each film is slightly different, but the aim is to both entertain and inspire you to get out and ride your gravel bike. We spot potential films during our day to day life in the Gravel Union office and then make a shortlist of the ones that are worthy of showing. Some weeks it’s a bit of a struggle to find anything suitable, other weeks there’s an avalanche of good ones that fall onto our desks.
There’s plenty of common features to the films that we choose – they need to feature gravelly riding, they need to be short/inspirational/interesting/motivating/thought provoking and perhaps most importantly, they need to be fun. Until now, they have all featured a gravel bike (or on rare occasions a CX bike being ridden on gravel trails).
Today, we’re going to break with a lot of traditions and probably put a digital cat among the gravelly-pigeons. It’s only Wednesday, you’re not reading this on our Facebook page and it doesn’t feature a gravel bike. But, there are days when you a) need some inspiration/motivation to start your day and b) spot something so brilliant that it needs sharing. So, without, further ado – we give you the perfect way to dramatically improve the quality of your Wednesday.
The bike featured in the film is this one, perhaps more commonly used for deliveries, ferrying children to school, doing your weekly grocery shop rather than long distance off-road touring. Although adding an ‘e’ before bikes has been somewhat of a controversial issue, when the bike in question weighs 35kgs (without luggage), electrical assistance is probably much easier to argue to the case for.
Our view on gravel riding is that it should be all about the fun factor and using the bike as a tool for seeking out adventures, whether that’s on your doorstep or on the other side of the world. Although you’re unlikely to see gravel trails suddenly full of e-cargobike riders, it looks as though the gravelly-party is set to become more diverse in the future.