Gravel Culture: #Scotlandstartshere
Posted By Gravel Union
On 7 July 2021
Having been firmly bolted to his office chair for the last 18 months, Olly finally makes his escape and heads north in search of #perfectgravel.
“This the best gravel in the world” said Warren, with a glint in his eye. His enthusiasm, matched only by that of his wife Esther, is infectious. They own Galloway Cycling and it is their obvious love for the Borders region and their passion for finding the best gravel rides there, that persuaded Golazo to set up the inaugural Raiders Gravel event in the area.
Raiders Gravel, which runs from 7th – 10th of October this year, is described as a “uniquely Scottish gravel adventure” and is set to bring a full-service, multi-day format to the UK gravel racing market for the first time. While they have an impressively detailed website and a promo video that instantly hooks you in and makes you want to go, Golazo wanted to demonstrate in person some of the wow factor that Esther and Warren had fallen in love with. As travel restrictions were easing, some of the UK’s cycling press were invited to go and see the area for ourselves.
Regional tourism boards are always keen to promote “their” area as being the perfect destination and the Dumfries & Galloway region were no exception. A lot of visitors to Scotland drive straight passed on-route to the more famous bits further north. #Scotlandstartshere is the clever marketing campaign that the tourism board had designed to persuade visitors to not just by-pass the region and was part of the reason for the event being held where it was.
Photo courtesy of Rupert Fowler/Raiders Gravel
Golazo had pulled out all the stops for our trip. I’d driven across from the grey skies and drizzle of Newcastle, to be greeted by ever-climbing temperatures and sunshine breaking through as I arrived into Gatehouse of Fleet, the home of the event. A very grand looking 18th century mansion (now converted into an upmarket hotel) was to be our base and outside was a Canyon Bikes ezyup and a couple of racks of Grizl, Grail and Grail:ON bikes for the assembled journalists to use during our stay. I must have made the correct offering to the trail gods as the bike I was allocated was a top of the range Grail fitted with GRX Di2 and some deep section carbon wheels.
Photo courtesy of Rupert Fowler/Raiders Gravel
Media trips are designed to shoe-horn all of the highlights of the area into as short a timeframe as possible, so once bike fettling was completed and we’d all been nicely fed & watered, we headed out on our first ride. The Raiders Gravel event is being held over three days and the route includes a mix of forest, moorland and coastal riding. The organisers started our test route off gently and we headed east along the Galloway coastline, taking in a mix of vehicle width gravel trails linked up with short sections of rural road. Within a few minutes of leaving the hotel we got glimpses of sea views on our right hand side and after a cheeky short cut through a caravan park, we basically popped out onto a beach!
Bike journalists are essentially pretty easy to please – something fun & fast to ride, decent light for photographs, some ‘wow factor’ scenery and an occasional ice-cream/coffee stop and we are as happy as Larry! The organisers obviously knew this pretty well and our itinerary ticked all the boxes. Our route headed further east, sections of fast and flowy gravel trail ran parallel to the coastline, sunshine glinting off the azure blue sea like a backdrop to a Welcome to Scotland promotional video. The ride was a chance to see the variety of trails in the area, but also a chance to try the new Canyon Grizl. The consensus of opinion was that the combination of riding, scenery and bike was close to perfect!
Sometimes I have to pinch myself that I actually do this for a job and standing outside the Cream o’Galloway ice cream parlour with warm sunshine beating down was definitely one of those times! Their list of ice creams and sorbets seemed to offer something for everyone and it didn’t take much arm twisting to get us to do some testing. Suitably refreshed, we headed back towards out hotel. The route was again a mix of virtually traffic-free country lanes and vehicle width gravel trails. Full of ice cream and riding in great company through beautiful scenery, there was a very upbeat feel to the afternoon.
Our evening was spent watching a number of presentations about the attractions of the area, followed by a gin tasting from a
newly set-up gin distillery, who are going to be one of the sponsors of the event. The conclusion was that the gin was excellent, but that the majority of the audience were clearly more suited to working as bike journalists than they were using their palates to search for flavour subtleties in locally made gin!
Photo courtesy of Rupert Fowler/Raiders Gravel
Day 2 dawned significantly sunnier than the weather forecast had predicted and after a short bus transfer up to the Galloway Forest, we headed off into the forest along the Raiders Road, originally an ancient smugglers’ route, but now a perfect gravel trail. Our route, although not super long, took in a real mix of terrain with some longer climbs, fast descents and some great rolling terrain with beautiful views across to the hills in the north-west of the region.
Photo courtesy of Rupert Fowler/Raiders Gravel
The ride really showcased the variety of scenery and terrain available in the area, but also (at the risk of sounded like I’d been brainwashed by the marketing campaign), really did make me question why you would want to drive hours and hours further north in search of gravel riding, when there was obviously such a great untapped resource just here!
Photo courtesy of Rupert Fowler/Raiders Gravel
In two short rides, it was never going to be possible to sample everything that three full days of riding would offer during the Raiders Gravel event itself, but like a perfectly selected pre-dinner aperitif, it helped generate a sense of anticipation and made us all want more. While the weather in October for the event itself, might not be quite as amazing as it was during our stay there, the location, variety of scenery & trails and the level of service offered by Golazo look set to make the inaugural Raiders Gravel an event not to miss.