One of the best things about gravel cycling is that you don't necessarily need to travel hundreds of miles to find an adventure.
There are probably gravel roads, bridleways, forest tracks, farm tracks and quiet lanes within a few miles of your front door that you've never ridden.
The problem isn't necessarily finding gravel.
It's knowing where to look.
Fortunately, there are now more ways than ever to discover gravel trails near you, whether you're looking for a quick 40km evening ride, a 60km weekend gravel bike route or a 200+km adventure.
From route-planning apps such as Komoot, Strava and Ride with GPS to asking your local bike shop, joining a gravel cycling group or simply downloading the route from a race, there is a huge amount of information available.
Here are some of our favourite ways to find your next gravel adventure.
1. Use Komoot to Find Gravel Routes Near You
One of the easiest places to start is Komoot.
Komoot allows you to search for routes based on your location and cycling discipline, including gravel riding. You can filter routes by distance, elevation, difficulty and other characteristics.
That means you can search for something like:
"Gravel routes near me – 50km – 500m climbing."
Rather than spending hours trying to create a route from scratch, you can see what other cyclists have already ridden.
This is particularly useful because a route that looks perfect on a conventional road map isn't necessarily suitable for a gravel bike.
A track might be private. A bridleway might be unsuitable after heavy rain. A footpath might not legally allow cycling.
Or what appears to be a road on a map could actually be a technical MTB trail.
Komoot's gravel-specific routing takes surface and elevation into consideration, while its recommendations draw on routes and information from the cycling community.
Komoot also shares phots that cyclists have taken along the route so you can see the type of terrain you will ride and also the views and potential exposure to the weather.
The app also breaks the ride down to the different types of surfaces you will ride, allowing you to understand what to expect. If you are wanting to avoid the winter mud then select a route that takes in more country roads and woodland gravel roads. Want to be alone and have your own adventure, then select routes with single track, off-road routes.
Use an existing route as your starting point
This is something we particularly recommend at GRVL.
You don't have to ride the route exactly as it was created.
If you find a 70km gravel bike route that looks fantastic but you only have three hours, shorten it.
If it has 1,200m of climbing and you don't fancy a mountain day, take out some of the climbs.
If you want to ride 100km rather than 60km, add another loop.
Think of someone else's route as a template rather than a rule book and remember, you don't need to follow the route on the day 100%. If a trail looks great but it's not on your route, go explore and see if you can link it back to your route.
Explore the GRVL Komoot Collection
We've done some of the route searching for you.
GRVL has built a growing collection of gravel cycling routes on Komoot, with 93 trails available to explore. We are adding to these every month so follow our Komoot page for updates and new routes.
Explore the GRVL gravel routes on Komoot
These routes are designed to give gravel cyclists inspiration for their next ride.
Use them as they are, or use them as a starting point for your own adventure.
You could take one of our 60km routes and turn it into 40km.
Or take a 50km route and extend it to 80km.
You can change the start point, remove sections, add additional loops or avoid some of the bigger climbs.
That's one of the best things about modern route-planning software: the route isn't fixed, unlike following tarmac to your destination.
Komoot itself allows riders to customise discovered routes according to the time, distance and difficulty they want, and to replan while riding.
So don't be intimidated by a route simply because it says 80km or 1,000m of climbing. You can make it your own.
2. Find Gravel Routes on Strava
If you're already using Strava, it can be another excellent source of gravel cycling routes near you.
Strava's Routes platform uses information from its huge cycling community alongside OpenStreetMap data. Riders can specifically search for gravel rides and trails.
This is particularly useful for discovering where local cyclists actually ride.
Look at the routes around your home and pay attention to areas where lots of riders are recording activities.
A cluster of rides heading down the same unassuming country lane could reveal a fantastic gravel loop.
Strava can also be particularly useful when you know what you are looking for.
Try searching for:
- Gravel ride
- Gravel bike
- Off-road cycling
- Bikepacking
- Forest roads
- MTB/gravel routes
- 50km gravel
- 100km gravel
You may find that the best gravel roads near you aren't actually labelled as gravel roads at all.
3. Try Ride with GPS
Another excellent option is Ride with GPS.
Originally popular with cyclists looking for reliable route planning and navigation, Ride with GPS is particularly useful for building and adapting your own rides.
Its route planner allows cyclists to create routes while seeing the track and elevation profile, and you can also discover routes created by other riders.
This is useful if you're the type of rider who enjoys building a route around a particular objective.
For example:
50km.
Less than 600m climbing.
At least 30% gravel.
One good café.
Home by 1pm.
That's a much better way of planning a gravel ride than simply saying: "Let's see where the bike takes us." Although occasionally, that's exactly what you should do.
4. Ask Your Local Bike Shop
Don't underestimate the knowledge sitting behind the counter of your local independent bike shop.
If you're searching online for gravel cycling near me, you might find hundreds of routes. Your local bike shop is guaranteed to know the three that are actually worth riding. They are cyclists and when they are not waxing chains and fixing punctures, they are on their bikes.
Ask them:
"Where do you ride your gravel bike?"
That's often a much better question than:
"What's the best gravel route around here?"
They'll know which tracks are rideable after rain, where the best cafés are, which trails have recently become overgrown and which supposedly brilliant route is actually a muddy nightmare.
The same applies to your local cycle café.
Cafés are often unofficial information centres for cyclists.
Talk to the riders in the cafe. Ask where they're heading. Look at the bikes parked outside and ask if there's a local gravel group.
You might come away with a route that doesn't appear on any guidebook or some new gravel ride buddies.
5. Join a Local Gravel Ride
Sometimes the easiest way to discover gravel roads near you is simply to ride with someone who already knows them.
At GRVL, we run regular community gravel rides from Church Farm Café in Aldbury, Hertfordshire.
The Chilterns are an outstanding area for gravel cycling, with routes heading through Ashridge, woodland, bridleways, the Ridgeway and surrounding countryside.
Our rides are designed to be social rather than races, with routes suitable for different abilities. GRVL has previously run approximately 50km rides around Ashridge Forest, woodlands, towpaths and the Ridgeway.
It's a great way to meet other gravel cyclists and, perhaps more importantly, find out where they ride.
6. Use Gravel Races as Your Route Library
Here's another trick that many riders overlook.
Look at gravel races you fancy the look of but didn't sign up to or want to race.
A good gravel race organiser has already spent considerable time researching and testing a route. Why not use it?
You don't have to race and you can go at your pace, take in the scenery and enjoy the ride.
Download the GPX, load it into your navigation device and ride the route at your own pace.
You might discover an incredible gravel bike route that takes you through areas you've never considered riding and there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking three hours longer than the racers.
In fact, that's one of the great things about gravel. You can stop for coffee, take photographs, have lunch, fix a puncture without panicking about your finishing time or simply stop on top of a hill and enjoy the view.
Race the route if you want. Adventure it if you don't.
7. Change the Route to Suit You
This might be the most important piece of advice in this entire article.
Don't let a route dictate your ride.
If you find a 90km route that looks amazing but you're only comfortable riding 60km, change it.
If a route contains 1,500m of climbing and you don't fancy spending your Sunday climbing, remove some of the hills or add more if your'e feeling strong.
If the route contains a huge climb that looks spectacular but you're already tired, find another way around it.
Modern route-planning apps make this relatively straightforward and you can change the route on the go. Komoot, for example, allows you to customise routes according to distance, elevation and duration which can be adjusted on your ride.
Want less climbing?
Avoid the lumpy bits.
Want more distance?
Add another loop.
Short on time?
Head home earlier.
Want more gravel?
Look for alternative tracks.
Want a café?
Build one into the route.
The perfect gravel route is not necessarily the route somebody else created.
It's the route that works for you.
8. Start With a Route You Already Know
If you're completely new to gravel cycling, don't immediately plan a 150km adventure into the middle of nowhere.
Start locally and find a familiar road route and look for tracks branching off it.
Use Komoot, Strava or Ride with GPS to investigate where they go.
Try 30–40km.
Then 50km.
Then 70km.
Before long, you'll start recognising the network of bridleways, tracks, lanes and trails around your home. This is the best bit about gravelling, you start to work out the lay of the land and how to link areas and destinations. You become aware of where places are in relation to each other.
And that's when gravel cycling becomes really interesting.
You stop asking:
"Where can I ride?"
And start asking:
"Where haven't I ridden yet?"
Your Next Gravel Ride Is Probably Closer Than You Think
You don't need to drive to Scotland, Wales or fly to Girona every weekend to experience great gravel cycling.
There are gravel roads, tracks and trails all over the UK.
There is only the perfect gravel route for you.
