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gravel rides scotland. ed shoote. vertebrate publishing softback. 249pp illus. £25
if you read one of my recent reviews, you would have found yourself availed of the quality of endura's latest offroad clipless footwear, ostensibly aimed at the mountain biker, but every bit as appropriate for the cyclocross or gravel rider. and should you be happy to be categorised under the latter heading, it strikes me that you'd probably be ever so grateful to learn of where you might parade those shoes in their natural environment.
north of the border at least.
covering 28 of the finest gravel style routes, from the borders to the highlands, ed shoote has belied the notion that it's only north america that possesses the necessary gravel to justify, not only the purchase of this book, but ownership of a suitably constituted bicycle. of course, aside from the relative solitude and distance from motorised trafic offered by such bona fide parcours, i would not find myself in disagreement with anyone keen to point out that a substantial portion of scotland's road network is none too far from the gravel description itself.
though i have previously aired my contention that gravel bikes and bikepacking seem exclusively designed to justify one another, there is no doubt that, for those who have entered the gravel fray, finding somewhere to test the mettle of your knobbly tyred drop bar bike, could conceivably provide the hardest part of the equation. islay, for instance, does proffer one or two gravel roads, but none of sufficient length that would justify purchase of a bicycle designed purely for such terrain. granted, we're an isolated case, and in ed shoote's case, the only island that made it into his final list is that of rum.
the author's justification says it all. "Why is an island with no roads in the book? Well, why not - there's no tarmac so every track on the island is gravel." and at 33km, it's hardly the equivalent of a highland passing place, particularly if you note the 587 metres of climbing along the way.
the book is particularly well illustrated, each ride pinpointed on a map of scotland, accompanied by a copious number of photographs, a profile of the route, it's level of gravellousness shown on a scale of one to five (that of rum, ranks as number two on that scale) and a detailed map of the route. as you would perhaps expect, the map of rum is particularly short on village placenames. the author also prefaces each ride with a brief description of the local area.
"(Aberfoyle) has long been known as having a few mountain bike trailes in the forests, but who knew it was the endless tracks in between that would turn out to be the area's crowning jewel? [...] Aberfoyle itself is a classic Scottish tourist town with souvenir shops and tour buses parked up and even a wool centre with sheep grazing at its heart."
but, of course, the fripperies are all very nice, but perhaps more valuable for an accompanying spouse, rather than those with only gravel in mind, and that is particularly where this book scores well. aside from the foregoing, the author offers an overview of the gravellous bit, in this case, that near lochgilphead in argyll and bute. "The route is a figure of eight startng in the picturesque village of Crinan. Starting here means a nice steady climb to warm up along the raod and a final warm down riding back along the canal towpath.
"The gravel riding is never technical, but it is one of those routes that undulates enough to leave you deceptively knackered without blaming any climb."
if gravel is your thing, or even part of your thing, given the purported lack of gravel on this side of the atlantic (cycling weekly's michael hutchinson once wrote that all that british gravel riders were likely to find was mud), this is probably the very book for you. yes, all these routes are in scotland, but we all really know that ought to be considered a major bonus.
ed shoote's 'gravel rides scotland' is published on thursday 7 april.
wednesday 6 april 2022
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