Epic gravel rides….?

After some local knowledge from anywhere!
I have a couple of days window this week, weather looks decent, for this time of year, everywhere.
I’m looking for top notch, long gravel routes, up to 100 miles ish.
I’m in cornwall so, peak/Yorkshire is probably my northerly limit.
Looking to do 60-100 each day!
I’m tempted to head back to elan valley but would like to find some new trails.
Any advice, gpx files etc would be much appreciated

Mid Wales would have been my first choice too. Just so many forestry tracks and old green lanes that can be linked together into infinitely variable routes, with the added bonus of loads of Bothies to overnight in if that,s your thing.

With a lot of local knowledge I think you could probably piece together a great ride around the Cotswolds which wouldn’t need much tarmac stuff. The Jenn-Ride we did back in the new year was 70km with very little on-road, and that was only a very small part of the area.

It would be quite easy to get a couple of good days around the top end of the Brecon Beacons and into Crychan, across to Builth and back to Hay. I can throw a loose route together for that if it would appeal?

Second City Divide

Before suggesting a route, just how gravelly are you prepared to go? Is canal towpath and forestry track your upper limit, or are you happy with muddy bridleway and rocky or rutted greenlane type tracks?

I almost want to avoid canal towpath sort of gravel… I’m pretty happy with Xc mtb style trails, rocky bridleway etc. Although for 100 odd mile routes, some good long sections of welsh fire road style gravel would be handy!

Thanks for the offer of a route around north Brecon, I did a great loop near Lyn Brianne, taking in cwm rhaeadr trail. It’s so good round there. Any advice on other sections would be great

oh if anyone has links to gpx routes I’d be really greatful. looking for interesting new stuff to ride.

Take a look at Katherine’s route, which I believe was a recce for a GBDuro segment. I like the idea of combining days 2 & 3 into a 100 mile single day. Clearly it’s a A – B route, so either an out and back, or sort out transport logistics.

Merthyr – Mach is on my radar.

Includes The Gap, which stretches the “gravel” notion a tad, but the rest is more gravelly.

Wales Off Road – Bristol To Manchester, The Rough Way

Cheers, they sound spot on but I’m on my tod and will be sleeping in the van, so I’m stuck with loops this time

Ridgeway or SDW although neither are particularly inspiring.
Train to Newport then up the canal to Brecon as a way into Wales.

edit – Plymouth Roscoff ferry for a bimble through Brittany. Might be your last chance.

The Gap is a bit much for gravel, IMO, but you could easily replace it with the Taff trail and the Brecon canal.

I disagree that the Ridgeway is uninspiring. Sure, it’s not technical, but it’s beautiful, atmospheric, epic feeling if you do a lot of it and it allows for some good head down mile-covering without traffic.

York’s: https://www.strava.com/activities/966254736

There’s a couple of Devon c2c routes that go over Exmoor and Dartmoor.
Plenty of gravel and bridleway action with some road linkups.

I’d speak to Charliethebikemonger. He loves the long travel rides.

Thanks everyone,
Djglover… that looks just my cup of tea cheers
The gap also looks perfect for what I’m looking for but a bit short. Will have look and see if I can extend it with some quality extra miles.
So far that Yorkshire loop is winning, damn it, it’s a long drive though

Devon/Cornwall c2c’s are a good option but done most and it’s on my doorstep, fancy some new terrain, while I have a window

I took the gap out of one of the rides I am putting together for you as I thought it might be a bit rocky! I will add it back in then 🙂

Welsh farmer, your a legend… replied to your pm

Cheeky request..I think you helped me out with road ride routes in the Brecons before @welshfarmer….Any chance of a copy of the gravel ride routes you have done?

I like those parts of Wales, but I think the Dales and North Pennines have more scope for the kind of riding the OP might be after. I’m just rediscovering this area, where I did a lot of my first mountain biking in the early 1990s. From the modern perspective, it’s gravel heaven…just come back from a couple of days, 200+km trip, Austwick to Appleby then the train back to Settle. You could string together infinite day loops if you don’t want to overnight en route, or do A-B stuff based around stations on the Settle-Carlisle line. One thing that’s struck me is how well some of the tracks I’ve been re-riding have recovered since offroad motoring has been banned.

I’ll second the Dales as a perfect spot, if you don’t mind gravel trending towards easy XC.

I’ve done a couple of quite epic routes this week (on an Arkose). I’ve been adding to this open source thingy actually, so you can see on here where some of the best bits in the Dales are and work out how to link them yourself:
https://gravelmap.com/#@54.21319877919606,-2.254510267109824,11,hybrid

Many of the roads in the Dales are also brilliant (Fleet Moss, the two from Warfedale to Malham), so personally I don’t consider gaps between offroad bits a just filler.

Here’s what I did this week. The second actually linked Salter Fell road in The Bowland Forest to the Dales:
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2263972543
https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2397403228

These didn’t include the really nice BW just north of Buckden, or anything further north in Swaledale stuff.

Some pictures!

…and North of Buckden, my (ex)partner from last year

Not sure if this counts as epic enough, and it involves some road and the gravel is a bit chunky in places, but at the weekend we did the following in the Peak:

Hope to Hathersage via Brough and Offerton. Hathersage up to Burbage via road, permissive paths underneath Burbage and through longshaw. Bit of road to get to the Moor over Totley Tunnel. The Eastern Moors permissive paths and back to Owlde Bar via Curbar/Froggatt Edges. Houndkirk Moor, back lanes to Redmire then Stanage Pole to Stanage Causeway descent. Lane across to Ladybower reservoirs and a full loop of the reservoirs. Thornhill trail back to Hope. That was just under 60 miles and 5000ft of climbing.

When back at Hope you could extend up to Castleton broken road then take one of the bridleways off the sparrowpit road to head across the top of where you would turn off for cavedale, but carry straight on and link into bridleways back to Hope.

It’s not gravel in its strictest sense but we found it all rideable and a dropped bar bike and it was a great day out.