Gravel Health is a ride diary, written by me. It's a record of places I've actually ridden on gravel and road bikes — Scotland, England, Switzerland, Italy and France — with the real route, the real climbs and what each ride was like.
I started riding at 14 and I'm 66 now, so that's a lot of years on a bike. It began on the road, then came mountain bikes, and for the last ten years it's been mostly gravel. Along the way there were Bromptons too, folded up for the train and the ride into work.
I've never been a crit racer and never wanted to be. For me it's always been about fun and enjoying the ride. I've done a lot of the Tour de France climbs over the years, but the days I like best are the simple ones: the sun out, quiet roads and hardly a car in sight.
I'll be honest: I don't enjoy cycling in the UK. Too often a bike on the road is treated as a nuisance, a lot of drivers aren't bike friendly, and anyone in Lycra gets the worst of it. I don't ride in England any more unless it's off-road on gravel.
Give me the mountains of Italy, Switzerland and France instead, and a weekend away with the bike. The Jura mountains in summer and autumn are hard to beat.
One climb I'd pick out is the Grand St Bernard. It's really nice just outside July and August, when it's pretty quiet, and it's quite a challenge, especially if you do both sides.
These days cycling is part of how I look after my health and fitness. I'm not perfect. I like a coffee and a slice of cake far too much to pretend otherwise, and once you're older, blood pressure and a few other things have their say too. So it isn't only the bike. There's weight training, because you need to keep the muscles working as you get older. There's the elliptical trainer. And I love a sauna.
Race calendars and route databases already exist, and they're run by people who haven't always been there. This site is the opposite: every page comes from a ride I logged, with my own GPS track, my own distances and climbing, and my own photos. The earliest rides go back to 2011.
Riding is how I stay well. That includes a knee injury that took the best part of two years to sort out, and the first ride back with no pain. I'm a rider, not a doctor or a coach, so nothing here is medical or training advice — just what the rides were really like. See the Disclaimer.
Gravel Health is free to read. In time it may carry affiliate links to gear I actually use, which earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Details are in the Affiliate Disclosure.
Corrections, a place I've missed, or a business enquiry: email [email protected]. More on the Contact page.