Gravel Rides
Updated 2025 Ride Programme
The club are delighted to have been offering a monthly gravel ride as part of our regular rides programme since August 2022. Popularity of this monthly ride has grown steadily with thirty or more members now regularly joining each monthly ride.
The ideal bike for these rides would be a gravel bike or cyclocross bike although the routes chosen are all accessible by mountain bike as well. Probably best not to try these routes on your road bike or Brompton though................
Gravel Ride Calendar 2025
The regular programme for 2025 has now been finalised and ride leaders nominated with the monthly gravel ride going out on the second Saturday each month. Ride leaders have been allocated to provide knowledge in selecting routes based on best local experience at the time of year – New Forest and Salisbury for wet, icy wintery conditions, spring and autumn for more bridleway and XC routes before the undergrowth grows and Summer wherever we wish to roam!
New for this year, after an experiment last summer, are some more intrepid, longer range days out in the summer months. These will be extra dates in the calendar. So with this in mind here are the dates and a brief idea of what we’re looking to bring to the special extra rides. The ride leader in each case is identified so you can ask questions ahead of rides if you wish, or know who to blame if it’s too muddy (mainly Paul!!)
We’ll send out briefing notes ahead of each ride and event so watch out for the monthly route updates.
Diary Dates
January 11th – Salisbury Plain – Paul – We had a great ride in January, in the snow on the high ground on Salisbury Plain. 15 of us braved the -6 degrees starting temperatures! A Lovely route from Paul!
February 8th – New Forest – Neil will have a 53km route on the high ground away from floods and ice!
March 8th –- tbc – Ysarn’s first route as part of the Gravel Leader group is still secret.
April 12th –Winchester – Nath
May 10th – Test Valley – Neil
May 24th May – South Downs Way Special – Paul will take us on the first of the longer adventure days starting with a classic. We’ll work up a couple of options for the sensible and foolhardy!!
June 14th – tbc – Ysarn
June 21st – New Forest Long Day Out – Neil will put together a 140-160km gravel monster day, with lunch!
June 28th – Stone Circle – encourage members to take part, Stone Circle. This is a great ‘longest day ride with great festival vibes. Whilst we’ll not be leading this ride we’d love a Venta presence in the Campsite.
July 12th Winchester – Nath
26th – Nath – Purbecks Special Adventure day out – Nath will be taking us out of Hampshire into Dorset!
August 9th – Winchester - Nath
September 13th Salisbury Plain – Paul
September 20th – Isle of Wight Special – Nath takes us on a short holiday overseas…
October 11th Test Valley – Neil
November 8th – tbc – Ysarn
December 13th Salisbury Plain – Paul
Specials
South Downs Way
Isle of Wight
Long New Forest
Purbecks (via Wareham) Ferry and then Train back from Wareham
Events
Stone Circle – 27th 29th June
Neil, Paul, Nath and Ysarn
If you are interested in joining a gravel ride please do email [email protected] and we can put you in touch.
