Are you ever too old to try out gravel riding for the first time? How tough is too tough? What time is too early to stop for coffee and cake? When your 76 year old mother-in-law decides that her perfect birthday present would be a couple of days of riding in an area chock-full of great gravel trails, it would be rude not to include some in the route, wouldn’t it? Olly sets off to discover whether #grannygravelling is a thing.

This might not look like your typical gravel bike. But then Betty* isn’t exactly your typical gravel rider either. At 76 years old, my mother-in-law had left it quite late in life to discover the joy of gravel riding, but I’m pretty confident she is now hooked. If I’m being 100% honest, Betty had already done some away-from-the-road riding on some gravelly cycle paths close to her home, so my wife and I knew she was happy riding on non-paved surfaces, but there’s a difference between a well-surfaced cycle path and a ‘proper’ gravel trail. Betty regularly cycles, including using her bike to pop to the shops and social rides with local friends. The purchase last year of an e-bike had also revolutionised her two-wheeled view of the world.

*Names have been changed to reduce the potential quantity of fan mail to a minimum.

Last year, for Betty’s 75^th Birthday, my wife decided that instead of buying her a physical present, we should offer her an “experience” instead. We did some brainstorming and came up with a weekend of walking in the mountains of the Lake District, a sea kayaking trip, or a 75 mile (120 km) bike ride. We made her a professional-looking pamphlet showing her all the different options, which she deliberated over for a short while before selecting the cycling one. 

Before we had given her the different choices, I had already fired up my route planning brain and had quickly put together a roughly 75 mile two-day loop, just in case she went for that choice. My outline route left from her home and headed into the hills of Northumberland, had an overnight stay in a small hotel and returned via a different route to her home the next day.  The problem was that it was just too tough. Because we live somewhere hilly, the route included nearly 1400m of climbing, some of which was 15% gradient. When my wife and I headed out to test it, we soon realised it would be too hard. So, we went back to the drawing board.

My initial idea had been to ride from Betty’s home and split the 75 miles into two days with an overnight stop. That ticked the boxes of making it feel like an adventure, would not require a vehicle (as I could carry all our luggage in the front of my cargo bike) and would have a good sense of achievement by rolling back to her home to finish the ride. But a ride always needs to be fun, whether it’s a weekend club ride, an outing with a group of friends or a special event for your mother-in-law, so I started working on a Plan B. And then a Plan C and D…. 

In the meantime, Betty decided that as she lived in a pretty hilly area, an e-bike would make her life easier, so once her local dealer had some suitable bikes back in stock, we helped her to buy one. This delay meant 2022 was basically over and she would soon turn 76, so now the route needed to be slightly longer…..

With the arrival of spring 2023 and the trails starting to dry out, I put together some new route options, based up the coast in Northumberland and staying in a lovely B&B that we had used in the past. Although this meant an hour’s drive to get to the start point, it also meant we had great accommodation, some fantastic scenery and some really great gravel trail options which we could include in the route. 

Planning a route based entirely on an arbitrary distance target isn’t something I’ve done before. I would normally plan a route based on the location, or a café stop or based around some amazing sections of trail. But this time I knew we had to hit the magic 76 mile marker as a combined total, so I dug out some paper maps, spread them on our living room floor and started to do some planning. This might sound old-fashioned, but a paper map helped me to visualise the whole area and clearly showed where there were some legal off-road options that I could include. I then transferred my ideas to digital mapping and my wife and I headed up the coast to test them out.

With a route in an area you don’t know, it’s not always possible to get it spot on first time and the fact that we were testing out the route on a UK Bank Holiday meant some of the roads were busy with tourist traffic. Some close passes from car and van drivers convinced me that keeping as far away as possible from busier roads would be my number one priority. Luckily, I’d discovered a couple of sections of vehicle-width bridleway which could be easily woven into the route and they had the serendipitous benefit of being located at the end of tiny dead-end country lanes, which kept the traffic to a minimum.

Good fortune also fell into our lap later in the test ride, as we rode past an old school which had been converted into a small restaurant. The menu looked great and it would make the perfect lunchtime venue on Day 1. With a mid-afternoon café stop also identified and some additional scenic but non-technical gravel trails woven into the mix, we were all sorted.

Initially finding the perfect route for Day 2 was a bit more complicated. There were a few sections of busy road that needed to be avoided and nothing seemed to flow together. But then, in a moment of inspiration, I realised that if we initially headed due south and hugged the coast, we would be able to take in several really fun (and scenic) gravel trails which kept us away from traffic. 

Finding a good mid-ride café proved to be the glue that stuck the route together. Then, with some cunning use of tiny back roads, a mid-afternoon bakery could also be slotted in too. All good gravel rides revolve around cake after all (or is it just mine that do that?) Weirdly, when I plotted up the second day, the distance came to within 100m of the length of the first day. Although we had initially planned to do a slightly longer first day and a shorter second day, both routes had a good mix of terrain, scenery, low traffic and cake so we showed Betty our idea, which she approved of. We did some diary juggling and got a date booked in.

Typically, while June had been wall-to-wall dry weather and was even quite hot at times, July had proved to be the opposite – days and days of rain and strong winds. The forecast for the dates we had selected looked like they would be a mixture of sunshine and showers, so we packed our best waterproofs and I re-fitted our winter mudguards. 

Our route started off with some quiet country lanes and the weather gods were feeling magnanimous, so we set off with sunshine and blue skies. “Sorry, sorry, sorry” said Betty as she flew past us on one of the short climbs that we had to tackle in the morning. My wife and I laughed and said that it was a little like having a personal derny rider to follow. Despite occasional bursts of turbo on some of the climbs, Betty used leg power significantly more than motor power and joked that by the end Day 1 she had only used up 30% of her battery.

This initial section of trail proved to be a great introduction and the fact that she sailed through easily gave Betty extra confidence. The remaining sections of away-from-the-road riding were wider and less overgrown and didn’t cause her any issues at all. She remarked a couple of times about the fact that despite living in the area for the majority of her life, our route was managing to show her places she’d never discovered before. Our lunchtime stop worked perfectly and apart from having to put up with a couple of afternoon rain showers, everything went pretty smoothly.

The only thing we hadn’t really judged properly was managing energy levels. When you ride a bike for a significant amount of time you end up being pretty efficient and if you’re riding at a socialable pace, it’s unlikely you will burn many calories. Betty on the other hand was on a much heavier bike and was doing something reasonably alien to her, so she started to flag in the middle of the afternoon. Fortunately, a cereal bar or two and a couple of rest stops meant we made it safely to our overnight B&B, where a great dinner and a couple of glasses of wine topped off the day.

Day 2 started where we had left off – a short section of quiet road was soon followed by some really fun coastal riding along the NCN1, a waymarked long-distance cycle route which heads up/down the east coast of the UK. Some sections are pretty rough and are borderline mountain biking in places, but we carefully tailored the sections of the NCN route that we used to make it a good challenge, but nothing that was too difficult.

Our morning route took us close to the picturesque seaside town of Alnmouth which we knew was one of Betty’s favourite locations on the north-east coast. An early lunch in Amble, where it was just about warm and sunny enough to eat outside was followed by more gravel trails heading due south and following the shoreline. Despite some pretty ominous-looking clouds we managed to stay mainly dry. Perhaps Betty’s luminous jacket reflected the rain back into the heavens?

An afternoon of riding tiny back roads and a delicate river crossing via the infamous Old Hawkhill stepping stones, was followed by an impressive display of off-road prowess as Betty flew up the muddy, pebbly and steep climb which followed the stepping stones to regain tarmac.  

With legs starting to get tired (and bums apparently starting to get sore) we pedalled down the final section of coastal backroad and arrived back at the carpark where we had left our van. You could tell by the smile on Betty’s face that she had enjoyed the ride. You could also sense her feeling of pride at having achieved a big goal. Our combined total distance was 82.6 miles/ 133 km, slightly over what we “needed’ to do, but as Betty remarked, it gave her some extra miles saved up in the bank for a subsequent year. We had also climbed a total of 1339m / 4400 feet and Betty had managed both days on the same battery and still had some battery life left too.

Being able to ride more miles than her age, climb the same height as the tallest mountain in the UK and finish not only with a big smile on her face, but also with some battery life left too was amazing. 

The only problem we have now is what we can do next year to better Betty’s first #grannygravelling adventure…..

Betty's top tips for #grannygravelling:

• Having a goal or a challenge is a great way of motivating yourself.
• You don't always need to use the motor. As your fitness improves you won't need to rely on the motor so much.
• Consider doing a small-scale cycling event before you do multi-day trips. An organised local event which is challenging but not too hard is a great way to test yourself.
• Get some basic advice about simple tips and tricks to get the best out of your bike and the battery. Change gear early, brake before you need to, think about what hand signals you're going to use etc. 

Fancy doing it yourself? Here are some things to consider:

• An e-bike is a huge leveller. It doesn’t need to be an all-singing all-dancing version, but the lighter it is the better. A lighter bike needs less energy to pedal, is easier to start/stop and helps reduce fatigue on the rider by being easier to manoeuvre.
• Make sure the rider is comfortable and the bike fits them well. Tyres are the most important thing – go for big volume for comfort and reduced risk of punctures.
• If you fancy doing something similar with a relative or friend, make it fun. This is your number one priority. Try and find the perfect mix of challenge, great views, some surprises, plenty of food/drink options and a sense of achievement at the end of each day.
• Research your route really carefully. Pre-ride it before you do it for real to test out the different options and if necessary, re-design it to remove the bits that don’t work. It needs to have the goldilocks ratio of fun: challenge. 
• Make sure you have some good café stops and decent overnight accommodation booked. Doing longer distances, with mixed surfaces means you will burn through way more calories than you will think. There’s never a good reason to ride past a potential cake stop when you’re #grannygravelling. A good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast will ensure everyone is full of energy for the next day. 
• Stop regularly for water breaks. Just because you can ride along a pothole-strewn gravel track no-handed while sipping from a water bottle, doesn’t mean your mother-in-law can. 
• Think about contact points for the rider and their bike. Try and persuade them to buy some “nappy shorts” as Betty called them (cycling shorts with a decent chamois as we know them), some well-fitting gloves and a comfy saddle. 
• The one thing we should have done differently was to have a bottle of something chilled and bubbly at the finish to help celebrate Betty's achievement.