The blog has been pretty quiet for the past few months, specifically from May 2026 to the present, the end of August. The reason for that is that I’ve had my energy and time eaten up by this completely crackers job I got on a Facebook group – being a ‘soiler,’ which is a type of mineral exploration. This had me digging up soil in places where I’m assuredly the first person to walk, combatting heat exhaustion, wearing a chest rig with a can of bear spray and playing ‘sad girl breakup music’ to avoid surprising any animals. It’s wild what you can end up doing when you know where to apply. To prevent the blog becoming a rant, I’ve kept the classic ‘three things I’ve learned’ structure. Enjoy!
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Four learnings and observations from riding the 137 km Stone Circle Gravel ‘Rebel’ route with no bibs and arguably the wrong bike
Having put up my tent in the grounds of Old Sarum fort at gone 2130 hours, I was dipping in to my bag to prepare my clothes for the ride the next morning, and laughed bitterly. My neighbour asked me if something was wrong, so I gave the news; I’d left my bibs on my bed and would have to ride with the pants and shorts I was wearing. ‘The adventure starts here,’ they reassured me, clearly finding this very funny.
This is a short blog post about what I learned and saw at this amazing event which went down on Saturday 28 June 2025. Hopefully you learn something from it yourself and avoid a mistake – or at least get some amusement from it like my very gracious neighbour did!
Calum On Wheels 