Tag Archives: hardtail

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!

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.