What is the Spirit of Gravel?

Revelations from my first gravel race

If you pay attention to the cycling industry at all, you may have noticed this obsession with riding bikes on gravel roads. Gravel cycling is huge. Has been for the last decade or so, I guess. But really, it’s been around for as long as bicycles have. Ask anyone from Colorado about gravel grinding and they’ll insist they basically invented the sport. My guess, though, is that companies found out they can sell bikes catered specifically to this bloc of cycling.

And then they figured out how to market them by, in part, creating a subculture around it. The Spirit of Gravel.

Gravel, they tell us, is inclusive. Gravel is flannel and roadie socks. Gravel is frame bags that could carry your labradoodle. Gravel is mustaches and mullets. Gravel is whatever-the-hell you want it to be. Gravel is your truth.

It’s only been within the last year or two that I’ve considered taking my bike on gravel roads. Not because I didn’t have “the right bike.” I just wasn’t exposed to them very often on my routes. Every once in a while I’d turn my road bike onto an unknown road that eventually turned to dirt and gravel. And if I’m on my mountain bike, I’m on singletrack.

I went on a “gravel grinder” with some riders I met through the bike club I’m a part of last January. Took my old hardtail. It was fun — but mostly because of the company. Riding on loose gravel up a steep hill is hard. And so, I thought back then, maybe that’s also the spirit of gravel: collectively accomplishing a hard ride, that, is still relatively novel because for so long it’s just been road or singletrack. I haven’t bought a “gravel bike.” I don’t have the funds. (And even if I did, I’d probably buy another mountain bike.) Instead, I’ve used the old, creaky hardtail. It has a Suntour fork that is in desperate need of tuning, worn brake pads, rusty bolts and tires in the 2-inch-wide range. The back tire is a Kenda XC that I bought at an LBS a few years ago for a deeply discounted price. I also recently bought new clipless Shimano pedals that I now use on my MTB and the creaky hardtail. But those two features — along with the locked-out fork — are the only things that allow me to appear as if I’m a gravel grinder.

My observation, though, is that the more your bike doesn’t look like a gravel bike is a sort of priceless social currency within the gravel community. “Whoa, look at that old Fuji hardtail he’s using. Good for him.” Thus, the spirit of gravel is also bike inclusivity, in a way.

I’m writing this a couple days after I finished my first gravel race. MO Gritty 50, part of the OMBC series, is the first of the year for me. Starts in Loudonville and goes throughout the Mohican/Glenmont area. And I have to say: I really enjoyed it. It was just the right amount of challenge mixed with fun, and sprinkled with a bit of Ohio’s unpredictable weather patterns.

One memorable part of the route has you riding along a paved Jericho Road, just after a pretty fun fire road descent through some woods. As I’m pedaling along Jericho, I looked to my left and the flash of neon green caught my eye. I had to look up. The neon green was a rider, who looked as if he were climbing a mountain. Giffin Road, an 8.2% grade climb on a gravel farm road. Pretty sure that was the steepest climb on the 30-mile option. (There was a 50- and a 30-mile route. I chose 30. It was more than enough at this point in the season. The 50-mile option had a couple 10% grades.)

There were fun descents on relatively packed-down gravel roads, some sections of paved road and even some woods riding. The 50-milers had actual singletrack through portions of the route.

The most memorable element of the race was the weather, though. And I hope the race, should it continue in the future, doesn’t change dates in an effort to avoid the unpredictability of Mother Nature. I mean, the word “grit” is in the name of the race. Riders are basically signing up to get punched in the face by nature’s whims.

And we got it. At the starting line, the temperature was in the high 20s. So were the winds. It stayed cold for the entire ride, with little sun pokes every so often.

Toward the end of the race, around 25 or 26 miles for me, we were hit with a snow squall that made it hard to see 20 feet ahead. I happened to be climbing a long, steady road when the snow hit. The grade reached 7.8% around the time the snow blew the hardest. It made it hard to stay on the bike, honestly. But I told myself at the beginning of the race that I would not hike-a-bike up the hills. And I didn’t. And that felt good.

The spirit of gravel is also a test of grit and determination. And so having icicles hanging from your beard, like I did at the end of the race, is really the only trophy that matters.

Perhaps I should have taken a post-race selfie photo. But I didn’t, because the spirit of gravel is also introspective. And somehow a photo trying to capture this inward journey seems too pompous. Next time. Maybe.

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What’s the spirit of gravel to you? Let us know in the comments. Or, if you don’t have experience in this arena of cycling, what’s held you back?