Dirty Reiver - 200km of gravel in Kielder Forest on 21st April 2018

Anyone else going to this? I'm heading up with a few other friends including @Tp88. Should be rad!

I've not done a huge amount of gravel riding before, but we've been doing plenty of canal towpaths, old railway lines, & whatever gravel across the tops of moors we can find in preparation. My quest for similar surfaces has led to filling in quite a few paths on GravelMap around Leeds. A few weeks ago we did the Transpennine Trail over to Manchester from Leeds, which was about seventy miles of off road, I think that's prepared us pretty well.

A few friends did it last year & said that it's the hardest thing that they've ever done. They've since set off to cycle from Portugal to China so I don't think it's put them totally off riding bikes. I expect we'll sleep well on Saturday night, even if it is in tents.

My setup , but with a full frame bag, two big bottles & an out-front mount .

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I’m in!

Will be coming down from Edinburgh with two friends who aren’t on the forum.

They’re both doing it fixed.

fixed! ooft.

Will be heading down with wife, son and MIL. They're gonna be out walking when I'm riding. I'll be riding with 4 pals from Glasgow too.

Quite nervous about it. I've not really ridden much this year at all due to newborn son.

A friend and myself missed the turn for scotland that goes through kielder . For two hours we rode up and down up and down and up again . Coming out 100 yards from where we started 2 hours later ! Its hilly very hilly muddy and very wet. Much a like a forest👍

Cool! A friend who did it last year said that he saw someone doing it fixed & it didn't look like they were having a good time, aha. He did it single speed & was fine though.

These two weirdos...

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I don't want to tempt fate, but the forecast is looking good for Saturday. I'll be doing it on this Genesis Vapour CCX, and hoping 140mm discs are up to the descents.

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That Genesis is hot AF.

Mozzies !!!!!!!!

Yup, I'm in. Red and white Niner RLT (if I can swap the BB and tyres by Friday!)

I’m in. Mountain bike though for me. Wimp.

Weather is looking more promising than I was expecting! It being a dryish week & all is gooooood.

Well that was hard.

200km and 10,000ft of climbing ain't messing around.

Weather and organisation of the event were both fantastic.

Here are some photos for anyone interested.

10/10 would grind again.

I saw one of you lot coming down from the first feed stop when heading out to it. Feet on the downtube, pedals spinning, knew it'd be someone fixed! Great going!

Weather was pretty much perfect other than having to try & sleep in a tent in a thunderstorm. We had a blast, tough but fun! A friend managed it single speed & got loads of kudos, suitably. You guys smashed it! Think I'm going to enjoy road biking for a few weeks now, done with bumpy stuff for a while, aha.

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I had a look on Strava, & looks like the guy who came first did it on a full-sus mountain bike with a time of 7 hours 11 minutes. Crazy, no shame in MTB'ng it!

Nice!

Yeah, my gravel quota has been filled for the next few weeks, too!

We were camping in a van on the Saturday and that was creepy as hell with the thunder and lightning so it must have been mad in a tent! Don't think I've ever seen a storm like that in the UK before.

Some people seemed genuinely angry that folks were riding it fixed, ha!

Mad time.

How did people do the river crossing? I took my shoes off & walked it because of my dynamo hub (excellent excuse).

observed a few folk crossing, made sure i had a wee run up and spun through it at high cadence. Made it over just fine, although feet still got fairly soaked.

PS - my SON dynamo is working fine ;D