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.
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 10,500 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 tracing the coast of southern Portugal, from Lagos to Sagres, where golden cliffs meet Atlantic wind and endless gravel roads.
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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