I am a road cyclist, at heart. Even when I’m in a car, I’ll daydream about riding the same road I’m driving. I’ll imagine how the tarmac might feel as my wheels carry me across it, the wind, the smells in the air. I’ll imagine how my lungs are expanding and contracting, cleansing me a little with every exhale. In my mind’s legs, I’ll feel the pressure building as I imagine myself rising out of the saddle to power over a pitch. I know I would feel the pain of such a ride, but I can’t really imagine what it would feel like. I can never really imagine pain.
The paved road is where we are the closest we will ever be to achieving flight. To restrict ourselves to tarmac, however, is to restrict ourselves to those places in this world which are most travelled. The most beautiful places do not lie at the end of such roads; they are hidden away, where those with some element of imagination might venture to look for them. A two-lane dirt track, perhaps, or a forest road that winds off beyond the damp forest and on to places unknown.
On gravel and dirt, we find a completely different sensation from that on the road. Certainly, many of the elements are still there, but the terrain demands a different kind of harmony; we dart along from one side of the road to another, looking for the best bits where the holes are smaller and the gravel is held together more. The dust or mud kicked up by our tires hovers in the air about us and covers our lips, teeth, and tongue. Suddenly, we taste the road as much as feel it.
Being away from traffic and in the wilderness awakens something primal in our spirits. The smell of damp dirt, moss, and bark or the baking scent of dry pine needles flushes the city from your senses and immediately awakens a calmer Self. My soul is at peace when I return home from such a ride.
The road is where my heart lies, but gravel is where I find my soul.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
Amen..
+1 I'm so happy to hear I'm not the only one who looks at unfamiliar roads (either in person, or via TV, movies etc) and thinks, "Man, that looks like a great place to ride." Just got a CX bike and need to find some gravel roads here in WI. It's not as easy as it might seem because the milk lobby is pretty powerful here in Dairyland and most back roads are paved.
"In my mind's legs", ha - brilliant.
You know, you write pretty well for one of them nerdy computer programmers...
Exactly...
On last evening's ride I ventured down an old logging trail I hadn't ridden before. As these roads often do around here gravel turned to sand/boulders turned to grass turned to ferns and petered out. As I shouldered my bike to look for any possible way through I looked down and saw what can only be described as a bumper crop of blueberries. I sat down and gorged myself like a fat bear before turning back and enjoying the gravel ride home. Nice article Frank.
Oh god. Yesterday, after the first real precipitation in many weeks, I rode 30k deep in the foothills of the Olympics, some of which hills are so steep they damn near overhang. Some logging roads and a lot of muddy, deeply-rutted dirt bike trails. More than once I could have used a fucking winch.
Today my body hurts so much more than it did on Friday, the day after riding 160km and climbing 2100m on the road.
I rode strictly dirt for 8 years before finding my way to the tarmac.
The peace and solitude that can be found when outside the bounds of civilization has no equal.
Well put Fronk!! I had my first true taste of gravel this year and like you, I love the road, but there was something to gravel that I couldn't put into words. I love the sound of tyres on gravel, the feeling of remoteness...all good for the soul!!
It's purely thanks to this community that I sold my #2 and #3 bikes to finance a CX bike this year. The new #2. Reading Franks words on riding the gravel inspired me to venture where the MTB felt under utilised. I'll still keep that for the true Scottish mountain trails and single track but the buzz of riding drop bars and skinny knobblies over gravel roads has pulled on my handling skills and enhanced my time with my bikes.
The next Scottish V ride on 31 August is predominantly off road. There was hesitation over calling it a Cogal. This article confirms that it deserves the title. Thank you.
In the Midwest, highway engineers knocked down the hills to make the paved roads nice and flat and straight, but the gravel wiggles around the glacial valleys and goes up and down the hills. The gravel is where it's at in the Missouri River valleys