Gravel. What exactly is it? According to the Oxford English Dictionary gravel is a ‘loose aggregation of small water-worn or pounded stones’.

According to bicycle manufacturers over the last 10 years it’s a licence to print cash. Mine included. Yes, I hold my hand up to succumbing to the onslaught of marketing spiel, and not long after their advent took receipt of a shiny new gravel steed with all the associated bells and whistles: the slack geometry, the 2.1inch tyre clearance, the flip-chip, the 40mm front travel.

You’d be forgiven for thinking I’d bought a hardtail mountain bike with drop handlebars, which, err, yeah – could very well be the case. Something MBR already pointed out when the guys pitched a gravel bike Vs an XC mountain bike recently.

Gravel or Hardtail? That is the question…

But it says Gravel Bike on the box, therefore, let’s pop it in its little pigeon hole and be on our way. Of course, much separates hardtail mountain and gravel bikes. As a rule, the latter will be far more capable and faster on the road, there will be less rolling resistance on hardpacked surfaces, and they’re often significantly lighter. And, of course, there’s a highly achievable aerodynamic position when reaching on the drops.

The best hardtail mountain bikes, conversely, have the aerodynamic properties of a yak with a sprained ankle – but who needs slick lines when you’re straddling an uncaring beast of a machine that reduces gravel to grit and fires it straight out the back end. Yes, where gravel bikes have lightweight agility and are more capable of dispatching smoother running trails and ascents at speed, the MTB does a pretty fair job of staring everything else in the face and requesting it to move or be moved.

Stephen “Shrub” Shrushall’s weapon of choice for the Southern Divide would not be a disgusting gravel bike, this time he was doing it right on an MTB

Making the choice

This list of pros and cons featured front and centre while I prepared for a recent off-road ultra event  – The Southern Divide, a 700km passage from Land’s End in Cornwall to Rochester in Kent. It sounds reasonably straightforward until you factor in the 10,000m of vertical gain, around 100km worth of sketchy singletrack, a ferry ride and a 5km bog in Dartmoor that welcomes bicycles into its soggy clutches before trying to swallow them whole. Yes, there are protracted road sections present on the route map, but these always pale into virtual nothingness, save for a 30km stretch along the Jurassic Coast. We’ll get to that later, though. It’s still too soon.

“the first rule of descending, of course, is thou shalt not poop oneself on the way down”

I’ve taken part in a number of off-road ultras and my weapon of choice has always been the gravel bike. My thinking being that I’d hit the blacktop and the ascents hard and manage my efforts over the sketchy stuff and on the descents. This year, however, I had a moment of clarity – one I should’ve been struck with many years ago in hindsight.

My descents, you see, lack confidence. Where many see technical downhills as an enjoyable challenge, I see them as a trip to hospital to remove a handlebar from my head. And the first rule of descending, of course, is thou shalt not poop oneself on the way down, meaning I’m doomed from the very start.

A mountain bike, though, with its flat bar, increased level of control, 100mm of front-end travel and a pair of 2.35in tyres would allow for a surer and speedier descending experience which, if my calculations proved correct, would override any weight penalty incurred on the asphalt and ascents.

The bike in question is Canyon’s Exceed CF8 hardtail, a machine laser focussed on XC speed

Lucky enough to be in a position to choose from a range of new models, I decided a Canyon Exceed CF 8 would be the bike that would take me from mid-table mediocrity to the front of the race. For starters the Exceed is incredibly light, tipping the scales at 11.04kg. It has enough bottle cage bosses to keep a small village hydrated, and, crucially, abounds with space for luggage.

I’d essentially be living on this bicycle for three days and would be packing accordingly: warm clothes for night riding, tools and spares for mechanicals and electronics (lights, charges, leads et al) would take up some 50% of my bike bags’ capacity. The rest would be allotted to petrol – or food as you’d know it. Ultra rides are essentially an exercise in stuffing one’s face with as much food as one’s stomach will allow. The needle on the fuel gauge perpetually teeters in and around the red and one is constantly required to lift the nozzle and start filling.

Fuelled on a pub landlord’s diet of crisps and lager, the start at Land’s End was hardly propitious

KM Zero

Logistics aside I lined up at the start of the event in Land’s End buffeted by a chilly early morning breeze. I’d slept for about three hours, and due to the fact that deepest darkest Cornwall isn’t particularly well provisioned with pubs and convenience stores, supper had consisted of crisps and lager. Slightly hungover and malnourished, I swung a leg over the Exceed. Fully laden bicycles aren’t the easiest to mount – there’s all manner of luggage to negotiate before settling into the saddle. So with a semi-ruptured groin I pedalled away from the most southerly point of Britain and began tapping out the first of 700 kilometres.

Looking at the picture in its entirety, however, is not the best way to approach an ultra ride. For me, the end of this ride was in Cornwall – about 110km up the road at checkpoint 1. To think of the end proper in Rochester was a thought almost impossible to fathom. So ‘chunking’ the ride into manageable sections makes the task appear a little more surmountable.

The stretch to checkpoint 1 – which finished at Cornwall Services just south of Bodmin Moor – was a smorgasbord of surfaces. From billiard table smooth asphalt to boulder-strewn descents, and everything in between. I was torn. Letting rip through a roiling sea of rubble around Cornwall’s rugged Tin Coast I gave myself a double thumbs up – the hardtail was very much the bike to get this job done. Then I’d meet a protracted length of blacktop and the dream was over.

“The Exceed and I – for better or worse – were in it for the long haul”

But I’d played my hand. There was no use in dwelling on the what ifs. The Exceed and I – for better or worse – were in it for the long haul. Rather than focussing on any shortcomings I’d put this bike to work on the terrain it was made for – and hope I had the requisite skill level to make it dance.

Checkpoint 1 came and went in a flurry of service station Cornish pasties and coffee. It was mid afternoon and my target was to reach a bunkhouse in Princetown, snatch a few hours sleep before making my way down to catch a ferry across the River Exe from Starcross to Exmouth. It was only 80km to Princetown – easy enough on paper. But 50 off-road miles in Cornwall is anything but, and I eventually reached the bunkhouse with a total of 210km and 4,300m of climbing in the legs. Four hours of ridiculously poor sleep subsequently ensued.

The Southern Divide is a monster to tackle, but a beautiful one at that

Dancing on Dartmoor

It was between CP1 and CP2 in Exmouth that this bicycle and I really started to tango. North Cornwall and Southwest Devon are desolate and host a network of trails that can only be identified by their GPS coordinates. If my Garmin had packed up in Dartmoor’s barren wilderness I’d probably still be roaming the moor now and calling my bike Wilson.

Yes, the trails up here are often as discernible as they are rideable. Hike-a-biking became part of the proceedings, the route currently consisting of gorse, streams, mud and rocks and the plaintiff call of a cuckoo. It was early May and although spring was in bloom, no one had bothered to tell Southwest England. Regardless, the Exceed was having a pretty good stab at moving me across the landscape. Engaging the 52t cog on the cassette I found I was able to take on pretty much anything that was thrown at me. In and out of streams, rolling through peaty pastureland I once again gave my decision to ride the hardtail a double thumbs up.

“Are you having a party,” she asked. “No, I replied. “I’m having breakfast”

Rolling into Starcross I made a beeline to a shop, any shop, as long as it sold food. Breakfast today has consisted of a brace of Babybel and the dregs of a packet of Minstrels – not enough, nowhere near enough. I found a little Spar and much to the bemusement of everyone else in the shop, indiscriminately swept around 5,000 calories off the shelves before presenting the basket to the cashier.

“Are you having a party,” she asked. “No,” I replied. “I’m having breakfast”. And with that I waddled out laden with carrier bags and waited for the ferry to arrive.

I may have forgotten to mention at the outset that this is a tale of woe. One that tragically does not include a happy ending featuring champagne and medals and swooning fans welcoming home their intrepid explorer. Despite the fact I was currently ensconced in a dog fight for the highly sought after 11th position, and fairing relatively well on the road, things were about to go tits up. Literally.

The hardtail with 100mm of properly controlled suspension would make light work of jumbly gravel like this, much more so than any meer gravel bike

Feast then ferry

Having enjoyed the fleeting ferry ride from Starcross to Exmouth, marvelling at the fact I was moving without turning a pair of pedals, I set off on what was considered the toughest section of the entire route. Checkpoint 2 through to checkpoint 3 in Corfe takes in the contours of the Jurassic Coast, which, to the uninitiated, come in the shape of bergs long and precipitous enough to give the most feared appointments in West Flanders a Napoleon complex.

I however, was nonplussed at the prospect of traversing these. I’ll explain why. My Canyon Exceed CF8 is in possession of a secret weapon. Or two, come to think of it. Firstly, out back we have a drivetrain that is built for winching up steep ascents. The 10-52t cassette married to a 36t chainring made light work of anything up to 20% – sure I wasn’t moving fast, perhaps 5mph at most, but energy expenditure was minimal. Spin it to win it as they say.

My second not-so secret weapon was a RockShox SID SL Select+ suspension fork with 100mm travel – or as I see it, a licence to let rip. The plan had been set and it was a simple one. I’d ease my way nonchalantly up the ascents before smashing back down them – a blueprint to efficiently dispatching the Jurassic Coast.

Things started well. I left Exmouth, my jersey pockets sagging under the weight of several kilos of confectionery, and hit the hills. My spin to win-tactic immediately started producing dividends – I genuinely could not believe how low my heart rate remained while climbing a 16% incline. Likewise, descents were a cinch, with the remote fork lock-out proving a real boon as I hit the sketchy stuff. I was energised after my banquet at the Spar, had growing confidence in the bike and now an air of optimism enveloped the ride – no sleep ‘til Rochester baby!

“It was on a steep and technical decline into a town in south Devon called Beer when it happened…”

It was on a steep and technical decline into a town in south Devon called Beer when it happened. My fork was open, the tyres were rolling beautifully over the rocky surface and I could almost smell the fish and chips. I’d planned to feed with wild abandon – again – in Beer and had calculated that a tenner’s worth of battered fare would be provide enough calories to reach checkpoint 3. I let my mind wonder: “Mmm, battered sausage”. However, my reverie was brought to an abrupt conclusion when I found myself flying through the air independently of my bicycle. Thoughts of deep-fried food turned to those of being air-lifted to the nearest A&E.

How on earth did this benign little trail get the better of me?

Instincts still surprisingly sharp after 200 miles on the bike, I put my hands out to stifle the impact. The lesser of two evils, my head was spared and bounced benignly off a small boulder, but my arms and hands – particularly the left, had contorted into a shape that I had never seen before, it looked a bit like a mangled talon.

I’ve fallen off my bike on many occasions, and normally after a little dusting off can continue. This didn’t feel like something that could be shrugged off.

“Gripping the handlebar sent shockwaves of pain ripping through my body”

Gripping the handlebar sent shockwaves of pain ripping through my body, but fortunately I’d specced a pair of aerobars for the journey, the left of which made the perfect sling for my arm. Riding one-handed off-road over the Jurassic Coast is not something I’d recommend, but I eventually managed to negotiate my way to the town of Bridport, where I sought solace in a hotel and necked a bunch of painkillers. I would make a decision in the morning as to whether or not I’d be able to continue.

The following day at 5am, still in race mode, I decided I’d make the call at checkpoint 3 in Corfe. My hand and wrist had scrolled through several angry shades since the accident, but had landed on deep purple today – and of course ‘Smoke on the Water’ became an unrelenting earworm for the following two days.  Arriving in Corfe, I took some more painkillers and decided to push on. It was now 36 hours since I’d left Land’s End – I may have broken my wrist, but I’d also broken the back of this ride.

From the beginning, however, I’d always had a bail-out option. A contingency plan that would see me on my sofa in front of the box without actually erring from the course. My house, you see, is about 90km from the finish line, and the Southern Divide passes within 20 metres of my front door. I now had one aim in mind – to ride home.

“I arrived home battered and bruised after riding 600km having gained over 9,000m of vertical ascent.”

Fortunately from here the going was a comparative piece of piss. Pan-flat gravel tracks saw the New Forest bisected on the aero bars, the Exceed comfortably rolling over the gritty surface, and the rest of the ride, despite a brief dalliance with the South Downs Way, continued in much of the same vein.

I arrived home battered and bruised after riding 600km having gained over 9,000m of vertical ascent.

Our hero, back safe and sound, and already planning another long distance epic on the hardtail

Gravel Vs. MTB: The verdict

Thoughts on the bike choice then. If I’d ridden this event on a gravel bike, what would’ve happened? Would I have crashed, or won, or would I still be on the slopes of Dartmoor living with a clan of badgers? More importantly, would I have enjoyed the ride more? The answer to that question is of course nuanced, but simply put: I would not change a single thing about that ride – going arse over tit included. Gravel bikes suggested that descending was a weakness, hardtail mountains bikes confirmed it. So for my next event, over similar terrain, I’ll be prepared. I won’t be heading to the shed to increase my FTP, I’ll be heading to the trails to learn how to ride off-road. And don’t worry – I’ll be starting with the Blues.