Gravel Grinding in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland with the UKGravelBike.club

admin October 1, 2019 No Comments

More durable than a road bike and much faster than a mountain bike, gravel bicycles present an exciting option for the rider who wants to travel on and off road. Travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination around Britain with us.

Today i would like to tell you a story about how from nothing the UkGravelbike.club was born. It all started in 2014 when i was doing some consultancy work (Area manager) at Cicli Elios – an Italian Cycling brand looking to approach the United Kingdom in a cautious manner. Cicli Elios is a historic Italian third party assembler located in Badia Polesine and had recently started to promote its own line of Road, Mtb, E-Bike and Gravel Bicycles. Being a Cycling marketing and lead generation expert i opted to create the first Facebook Group page from scratch to try and promote their gravel bikes better.

As time progressed – and after having parted with Cicli Elios in January 2018, I quickly realised that the essence of the group was not commercial but was of a free community. A place where Gravel Grinders could get together to exchange technical information, routes and general Gravel Chat in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland without the perception of hidden marketing ploys. The only thing to do was to carefully nurture the group and let it grow. Oh by the way i do ride a Gravel Bike, actually i choose ‘Made in Britain’: Sonder Camino and i do not have any commercial links with Sonder.

At the beginning of 2019 i decided to invest more of my free time and resources in this project to help make it grow even more. Cycling has given a hell of a lot to me, so i just want to give something back to cycling in the country i was born in and i love. Hence the UkGravelBike.Club website was put online. It’s main purpose is to be another safe haven for gravel buddies and brands:

looking to bring more visibility to their Gravel Events and Sportifs
looking for new Gravel routes to upload to their Garmins or smartphones and to share with the other community member by sending them
looking to review their Uk Gravel activities through article marketing and technical reviews – on the condition they provide discounts and promo especially for our club members

I was also lucky enough to meet a very passionate Uk Gravel Cyclist ‘Jason Oliver’ who has been my reliable right wing man. He is also responsabile for this constant growth. Both of us would like to thank you for making this project work. We are working on new ideas and gravel projects which will really annoy gravel commercial projects that have sprouted up like mushrooms this year. I can positively say that more and more road cyclists and mountain bikers are converting to Gravel in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Come and join our Community now!

We are also looking to expand our Gravel Volunteers and to invite more Gravel Brands and Activities to the project. We have very clear ideas for 2020 let’s make them happen together!