Gravel Culture: Cobble wobble
Posted By Gravel Union
On 18 January 2021
Although not a typical “gravel” surface, Olly looks into the attraction of cobble riding and wonders whether a gravel bike could actually be the ideal bike for the UK version of the Spring Classics.
When we published this image on the Gravel Union Instagram page last week, it got our highest ever number of likes and comments and is heading towards 1000 as I type this. Considering that it’s a picture of a cyclist riding a road bike up an (unfeasibly steep) cobbled climb, yet we posted it on an Insta profile dedicated to everything gravel, it made us think – is there something magnetic about the draw of all challenging looking non-paved surfaces to a gravel rider?
Back in the distant past, in an era known as BC (before you-know-what), I used to travel regularly out to the home of the Spring Classic, the Flanders region of Belgium, and attempt to rattle my fillings loose by riding as fast as I could manage over km after km of irregularly spaced hunks of granite. Fast forward on a few years and I had moved to the north of England which meant ‘hopping’ over the channel to ride in Belgium or northern France became a logistical and economical nightmare - I needed to find my fix of cobbly goodness closer to home.
Luckily finding a local version of the Spring Classics didn’t take much searching. Who needed the Ronde Van Vlaanderen when you could ride the Ronde Van Calderdale (or Reet Vert & Cobbly, as it should be called) instead – an annual event located in the former mill towns on the borders of Yorkshire and Lancashire and promising a challenge equal (if not more hideous) than its big brother out in Belgium.
When you look at the route profile of the 2020 version of the RVC event, which ran last September rather than its normal schedule on the day of the RVV in April, you’ll immediately see the full horror of what lay in store for the participants – there’s basically no flat spots anywhere on the route – it’s all crazy steep up followed by crazy steep down. The organisers do a brilliant (and devious) job of making almost all of the climbs cobbled and the descents tarmac-paved, which takes some of the sting (and the worry out), but with the steepest gradient being 28% and many (many) sections of above 20%, this is not something to be tackled by the faint of heart or lung. Although the event is nowhere near as long as it’s Belgian cousin (which in 2020 had a parcours of 157kms for the elite women and 220kms for the elite men), what it lacks in duration it makes up for in elevation gain – more than 3000m of climbing in 120kms.
I last rode the event back in 2017 and at the time gravel bikes weren’t super common and a significant portion of the participants in the event were on pretty standard road bikes. You could spot some ‘endurance’ road bikes, but there were also a lot of road race bikes – steep angles, skinny tyres, small cassettes and road SPD pedals. If you watch the pros battling it out on the Belgian ‘bergs’ they’re also on barely modified road bikes, but with top end gravel bikes now matching road bikes in terms of weight, yet offering 40mm+ tyre clearance, vibration absorbing technology, disc brakes and a much wider range of gears, surely a gravel bike would make a much more appropriate cobble-taming bike?
I was obviously (slightly) ahead of the curve as even back in 2017 I was using a CX bike on the road and by stealing temporarily borrowing my wife’s 11-32 cassette, I had a 34-32 lowest gear, 28mm tyres and a frameset designed to cope with the battering of a typical CX course – I thought I would romp round and fly up the grease-laden cobbly climbs of doom no problem. My not-so-secret trick of running MTB SPD pedals meant that at least if I did have to succumb to using Shank’s Pony to get up the steepest of the climbs, at least I would be able to stay on my feet, rather than flailing around in the gutter.
You might wonder why anyone in their right mind would choose to climb the steepest cobbled roads that an area possesses? The answer would (of course) be because cyclists, and particularly gravel cyclists, love a challenge. We choose to ride away from the smoothness of a normal paved road precisely because half the fun is overcoming the challenge and pushing ourselves a bit. Luckily the RVV organisers weren’t complete sadists and there were some really lovely sections of the route, with great views, the perfect gradient to be able to get into a nice rhythm and even some grip in places too.
Of course, what they gave with one hand they took with the other – the “road” in the first photo is Old Lane, near the village of Luddenden Foot and was (in my opinion anyway) the toughest on the route – not only vomit-inducingly steep, but so narrow that you couldn’t get around a rider who stalled/dabbed/failed to unclip and then fell over. It’s also long. Horribly please-let-it-end-soon long. Oh and lined with photographers and spectators on the ultimate (and steepest) section too, to capture the ignominious failure of most of the participants to actually ride up rather than walk up. Miraculously I did manage to ‘clean’ this (but then failed on a subsequent equally hideous climb where a fellow rider fell off right in front of me just on the steepest section).
What did I learn and what would I do differently next time? In the four years since I last rode the RVC I’ve progressed to riding a gravel bike (rather than a CX bike) as my road bike. I use 38mm tyres year round and have my own 32tooth cassette now. If I was going to tackle the RVC again and I had a choice, I would go for a 34tooth cassette, but stick with my super-wide-and-soft tyre option. My top tips would be that anything you can do to get extra grip should be encouraged – have a low enough gear to allow you to sit down on the steepest sections, set a pace at the bottom of the climb that you can sustain to the top and remember to keep your head up – this allows you to spot the smoothest line choice and avoid as many obstacles as you can.
And, in an ideal world, take a designated driver so that you can sample the post ride celebratory beers without worrying about having to drive home afterwards.
The organisers of the RVC are hoping to run the event in 2021, but are looking at dates in May/June rather than April due to you-know-what. Keep an eye on their facebook page for the latest news.
If you are not able to enter the RVC event or would prefer to ride it by yourself, once CV19 restrictions allow us to travel, this is the komoot Travel Gravel route for you to follow. Pack your gravel bike and your gravel bike and you’ll be fine.