How can riding in such appalling conditions be so much fun? That seemed to be the consensus of opinion from last weekend’s North London Dirt. As we stood shivering in wet, mud-encrusted cycling kit at the end of the event, waiting for a freshly made wood-fired pizza to be delivered into our greedy mitts, the post-ride buzz was tangible. Olly looks back on the muddiest and funnest^TM gravel event that he has ridden in this year.

If you listened very quietly, the audio soundtrack to the final woodland section of the route was both hilarious and insightful. There was manic, almost hysterical, laughter. There were involuntary squeaks and audible intakes of breath from riders who had near misses with any number of large trees. You could hear the omni-present howl of disk brake pads worn to their very limits (and often beyond) and there was the splish-swoosh-schlufff of gravel tyres desperately scrabbling for grip on the dark, loamy, root infested soil. 

No one (within my earshot at least) actually said “This isn’t gravel”, but if any of our American RealGravel^TM riding cousins had been taking part, they would have flung their teddies so forcefully out of their prams that NASA would have picked them up on their air traffic control system. It was, in short, any absolute joy. Or at least it was if you had any kind of CX or MTB background. And you were fortunate/wise with your tyre choice. 

If you were new to riding off-road/had your tyres inflated too hard/hadn’t made the right offerings to the gods of woodland trail traction, it might have been slightly more of a struggle. But everyone seemed to have vast, wide-eyed grins on their mud-splattered faces. There was a common sense of trying to triumph over adversity and again and again I heard comments from riders who had ridden many (if not all) of the previous five iterations of the North London Dirt series, saying that this was their favourite one yet.

The day started off so well. Early morning sunshine broke through a slightly overcast sky as I rode the short distance through the wealthy suburbs of north-east London to get to the start line. Everywhere was bedecked in bunting and there were numerous groups of people setting up for street parties. But if you were a gravel rider, the imminent coronation of the new British monarch was low down the agenda for the day. And riding some amazing trails with more than 200 of your closest urban-trail loving brethren was probably at the top.

You might have thought that a love of riding urban gravel trails was a pretty niche hobby, but every year Andrew and Philip Diprose, the organisers of North London Dirt, manage to generate such deep-seated love for their event that it sells out within minutes. Luckily, as Gravel Union are one of the events supporters, I was able to wangle an entry and despite it being a 5hour+ journey from our office down to London, it was time very well spent for the chance to ride at the event. The sign-on area, in the grounds of St Mary’s New Church in Stoke Newington, was buzzing with riders when I got there. Everyone was happily strolling around drinking their complimentary cup of Workshop coffee and catching up with old friends. 

Chatting with Andrew and Philip, they said that some riders had come and signed on (and then set-off) at 6.30am, which might sound a little keen until you looked at the weather forecast predictions for the day. Although the morning was shown as being warm, dry and with sun/cloud mix, the afternoon was predicting the arrival of a UK version of a monsoon. The early riders had obviously been hoping to get around the 110km route before the heavens opened.

My little gaggle of riding buddies had a much better idea though. Although we set off decently early, we had only ridden for a matter of minutes before we peeled off and in through the welcoming doors of a local bakery. All good gravel rides are fuelled by cake, as everyone knows, so we topped up our energy levels with fresh cinnamon buns and almond croissant. This actually proved to be quite fortuitous, as lunch ended up being later in the day than we had planned and we had burned through *a lot* of energy by then. 

For each of the five previous iterations of the NLD, Andrew and Philip had gone to quite unbelievable lengths to research the route and for version 6, they'd done the same again. They seem to spend 364 days honing the route and every version followed a different course. We were soon through the initial residential section and onto the first of many little gems of urban trail that the Diproses had found. It wasn’t all stunningly scenic, in fact some bits were pretty run-down, but if you’re urban riding that’s what you expect. 

"There were plenty of squeaky bum moments as tyres skittered across off-camber roots and scrabbled for grip, but we managed to keep it rubber-side down."

The little scraps of urban woodland were the sugar that sweetened the concrete-y pill. Rain in the weeks running up to the event had softened the ground, but there was a dry line pretty much everywhere and the very slightly polished surface generated a hilarious stick/slip feel to the trails. There were plenty of squeaky bum moments as tyres skittered across off-camber roots and scrabbled for grip, but we managed to keep it rubber-side down.

One of the key moments in any urban-to-rural ride is when you pass over/under/across the last major road and although the slightly timeworn bridge over the M25 motorway which encircles London wasn’t exactly memorable from an architectural perspective, it did mentally mark the moment we escaped the clutches of the city. 

Our route from this point became increasingly more rural. The patchwork of urban woods, urban cut-throughs and residential suburbs left behind and in its place came ProperGravel^TM. The countryside surrounding London is in the main full of large houses, many of which own extensive chunks of land. While this might not sound ideal, the network of gravel roads, gated to prevent vehicular access but open to horse riders (and more importantly, perhaps) gravel cyclists, meant we were soon rolling through peaceful countryside on perfect trails. 

The section immediately north of the M25 was a perfect example – pristine, hardpacked gravel roads crossing through large country estates. Unfortunately, as we headed further north, the trails were perfect, but there were some ominous looking storm clouds gathering on the horizon. I hoped that the fact I had stubbornly kept my full-length mudguards fitted on my Grail would pacify the weather gods and keep the wet weather firmly just-over-the-horizon….

We were perhaps lulled into a false sense of security by the wide, flowy trails that initially greeted our entrance into Essex, so it came as somewhat of a jolt to the system when we encountered the cow parsley strewn singletrack that the Diproses had shoehorned into the route, mid-morning. The photos don’t do any justice to quite how treacherous the surface was under tyre. 50cm wide clayey singletrack, frequently cambered with just enough roots/puddles/hazards to make you concentrate and an utter lack of any form of traction meant this short section of trail was hilariously difficult to ride. Despite how innocuous it looks, many riders hopped off and pushed the last section, where the grip was the least tangible.

I’m not sure exactly where we were when the rain really started in earnest, but we were riding along a canal towpath. Overhanging trees gave us a decent amount of shelter, so initially we agreed to push on and ignore it.

Someone in every group is the one who either gives in first or is just slightly bossier than the others and demands a stop. I will happily take the blame for pulling off the road when I did, but it was a combination of ever darkening clouds, ever harder rain and then the magical appearance of a roadside barn with an open front that tipped me over the edge. We were the first riders to seek shelter, but within a few minutes the heavens properly opened and soon the barn was filling up with riders, some of whom were soaked to the skin from the intensity of the deluge. Other groups looked at us as they rode past, gave a jokey comment or a wave but kept pedalling on into the now biblical levels of water falling from the sky.  Waterproof jackets were dug out of jersey pockets, wobbling lower lips were pulled back in and resigned expressions were assumed. It was going to be somewhat tougher from now on.

The next few sections of trail have blurged together in my brain. I can vividly picture one spectacularly greasy vehicle width track, where a slightly risky overtaking manoeuvre was needed to get around a slower rider who was liberally spraying liquid sandpaper over anyone sat behind them. There was a little village daubed with very soggy bunting and then we arrived at the mid-ride stop. In my brain, there was likely to be food there, so I was slightly disappointed to discover it was drinks only. We delved into pockets for remnants of energy bars and were grateful for our early-in-the-ride bakery stop. A bit of speedy googling showed a small town less than 10kms away which promised shops or a café. Spirits lifted.

Gravel tracks running down the edge of a potato field, when dry, can be one of the finest inventions known to off-road riders. Unfortunately, when they’re wet, they are somewhat less inviting, although the grip/slip/grip nature of the surface meant the mud-caked grins at the bottom of the descent were sufficiently wide to make up for the discomfort. It was about now that Ian discovered his rear brake pads had dissolved. He wasn’t going to be the last rider to be struck by this during the remainder of the ride. 

" A herd of filth-coated gravel riders traipsed through their shop, depositing a gentle slurry of muddy water at every spot that we stopped moving."

Lunch was taken sheltering under the eaves of a small hairdressers in the village of Stanstead Abbots. The staff in the small high street supermarket had looked slightly bemused as a herd of filth-coated gravel riders traipsed through their shop, depositing a gentle slurry of muddy water at every spot that we stopped moving. The mental calculation of “most calories in the quickest time for the least money” was undertaken and everyone seemed to leave armed with their perfect refuelling combo.

The standard post-lunch lull was rapidly dispatched via the cunning combination of a clay-slicked trail running across the camber of a hay meadow. It needed full concentration and a good dollop of speed in order to avoid sliding gently off the trail on the downslope side, but slightly tiring legs and brains weren’t always in the right place to enable this. 

The afternoon passed in a blur of vivid green woodland, an inability to coherently speak English (I can clearly remember trying to describe a ramped bridge over a railway as “a level set of steps” at one point…..) and a lot of being sprayed with back wheel slurry by everyone else. I had initially felt pretty smug about my choice of mudguards, but it only works if everyone has them fitted, or you spend all the time sitting at the front of each group that you’re riding with. Fortunately, despite the constant rain and soaking trails, the temperatures weren’t too bad, so no-one was at risk of getting hypothermia.

" I had initially felt pretty smug about my choice of mudguards, but it only works if everyone has them fitted"

If anything, it was the state of our bikes that was more concerning than the state of our bodies. Ian’s pads had worn out quite a while ago. There was quite a lot of gear crunching going on and at one point I felt a distinct pop from my rear brakes, which is never a good thing and was probably the point I wore completely through the pad material and started to work on the backing plate. I started to try to consciously use my front brake more from this point onwards.

As we headed ever-closer back towards London, the heavy drizzle continued to beat down. A long section beside the River Lee Navigation canal was great in that it was pan-flat, but we were riding into a reasonably strong headwind and the choice was either shelter in the wheels of a group and get coated from head to toe in sandy slop from their back wheel or try and overtake (not easy with the narrow constrains of a tow path) and then do battle with the headwind. 

Somewhere in the suburbs of north London I pulled my phone from out of my jersey pocket to capture a few final-bit-of-the-ride images to discover an error message saying that it would self-destruct in 10 seconds (or something similar). This scuppered my plans to take any more photos, but luckily wasn’t terminal and after an hour’s wait the phone re-set itself and all was ok with the world again. Fortunately Tom Gibbs (the official event photographer) was there with expensive camera carefully sheathed in layers of plastic and he captured the scenes of post-ride devastation! 

Image courtesy of Tom Gibbs/Bicycle_Factory

Andrew and Philip were personally welcoming everyone home (although they disappointly turned down our collective offer of a big hug…). Magic Rock Brewing were giving everyone a post-ride beer (including a delicious alcohol-free one, which is not something you can say very often). The Neopolitan pizza chaps were doing a roaring trade in post-ride pizzas (free to all participants as part of the entry free) and the community hall, partly funded by the income from the event donated every year, was like a scene from a WW1 movie. Everywhere riders sat in a soggy mess, pools of liquid mud gathered at their feet and the once pristine white chairs had sandy arse prints ingrained into their surface. 

The odd thing was that despite how wet and filthy we all were, every single rider was talking about how much they enjoyed the event. British riders are perhaps well known for their stoicism in the face of rubbish weather/riding conditions, so perhaps it was to be expected, but it was testament to what a great job the Diproses had done with the course design that everyone was buzzing rather than complaining.

With classy post-ride goodie bags slung over our shoulders and muddy promises to be back “same place, same time, next year then?” the riders headed home. Although the ride to where I was staying was pretty short, it felt impressively tough. It was only when I subsequently washed and carefully inspected my bike, I realised that the rear pads had worn completely through the brake material and nearly through the backing pad too. I was fractions of a millimetre away from using the brake pistons directly on the rotor as my means of slowing down. The pads were so worn that the rear brake was jammed on and my rear wheel wouldn’t rotate at all when I tried to move it by hand. That explains the grinding noise and the difficulty pedalling then…..

I’ll stand in the corner with a Dunce’s hat on for a while, shall I?

Despite having practically ground my bike into dust, I loved every minute of the NLD event and can’t wait to head back for next year’s version. I’ll just have to remember to pack some spare brake pads next time.

Fantastic header photo courtesy of Tom Gibbs/Bicycle_Factory