August is dead quiet for my 9-5 job so I took Tuesday-Friday off this week (the week before August Bank Holiday 2025). I decided to ride some of the Cantii Way in Kent, which is a cheapish 90 minute train ticket away from London, and also had a Panasonic Lumix GF1 camera, which I hope will mark an improvement in the output on this blog. I should also add this is the first blog post following a trip done on my new bike, which is a titanium frame with bits and gubbins from the Merlin swapped on to it. This is a short article outlining what I learned and observed.
Tag Archives: gravel
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!
3 successes and learnings riding from Hackney to Brighton off-road
I’m very lucky to have pals who commit to big plans and full days out; I asked my friend Maria if they’d be free for ‘a ride’ on a coming Saturday, and they immediately came back with a full .gpx file going from Hackney to Brighton overwhelmingly off-road. For me this came to a day’s 165km/100mi of riding. We kicked it off at 0715 to make the most of the sunshine and to hammer it out of London before it got too hot, and we met up with two other pals in Richmond and Weybridge. It was a great day out with some big wins and learning points, so here they are.
What I learned riding ‘the Purbeck bimble’ aka ‘Purbeckspedition,’ a MTB/gravel and bikepacking route on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset
I’ve just come back from the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, where I re-rode a route I did a few years ago. It’s a really great weekend away so this is a short blog about how to make the most of it and what I learned on the ride (and the camp).
What I learned: Riding on the ‘old chalk way’ from Tring to Pangbourne
To try and focus my blogs and keep them from being an unstructured mess, I fix them around ‘wins and losses’ from a given ride. This time it’s around a great day out from last Sunday, where I got the train out to Tring from London Euston, and followed a route called ‘the old chalkContinue reading “What I learned: Riding on the ‘old chalk way’ from Tring to Pangbourne”
2 flops and 2 wins at the Pan Celtic Gravel Rally 2024
Last weekend I rented a van with my pal and drove from London to Eryri National Park (Snowdonia) with our tickets for the Pan Celtic Gravel Rally in our pockets. This meant a 19km ‘night stage’ on the evening of the Friday, starting at 2030, and the 136km ‘long’ route the next day starting atContinue reading “2 flops and 2 wins at the Pan Celtic Gravel Rally 2024”
Gravel bikes for the UK: Just get a hardtail
If you’re interested in off road cycling you may well have ‘gravel bikes’ being marketed at you. They can supposedly ‘do it all,’ because all it takes to tame the UK’s off road terrain is some wide knobbly tyres, flared bars and some hydraulic disc brakes. I was persuaded by this and persevered with trying to make a Surly Midnight Special a ‘do it all’ bike for more than a year, and learned the hard way that life is too short to try hammering square pegs through round holes. This is a short article about how I ended up trading it in for a cheap 2nd hand hardtail and why I think you’d likely be best served by opting for the same.
Calum On Wheels 