The Gear: Coffee and Gravel
Posted By Gravel Union
On 31 January 2020
Product Title:
Coffee and the gravel cycling industry
Cost:
Knowing the right people
Release Date:
Already out there, but you might have to look carefully
Brand:
Varies
Product Description
The whole of the cycling industry seems to run on coffee and the gravel riding world is no different. Every race, event, trade show and meeting are fuelled by the black stuff. Business deals are lubricated with it. Racers use it to get themselves ready for the starting gun. Club rides start from, pause at and finish at a café in a lot of places. Coffee companies like Segafredo, Faema and Saeco are all involved with sponsorship of professional road racing teams and Italian brand Rocket are big gravel riding fans.
As a gravel rider, there’s a high likelihood you’ll also be a coffee fan and some of us take our passion for coffee almost as seriously as we take our passion for gravel riding. Without spending too much money you can prove your coffee-cycling credentials with a coffee-related water bottle or a retro coffee sponsored cycling cap.
But what if you’re really a cycling-coffee fan and you want something that’s not easy to get hold of to prove your credentials? Then it might come down to knowing the right people, or just being lucky and being in the right place at the right time.
We’re fortunate enough to work in the gravel cycling industry and have a small stash of our own treasured and not easy to get hold of Objects of Desire:
- Our friends at Shimano produce their own coffee beans, but you can’t buy them for love nor money. A dark espresso roast, with chocolate and berry fruit flavours – the perfect way to get ready for a gravel ride.
- Once you’ve ground your Shimano beans, you’ll need to tamp then correctly. And if you’re lucky you’ll have a Chris King coffee tamper to do it with. Made in small numbers from headset cups that haven’t reached the exacting standards they set during the manufacturing process. Beautiful to look at, perfect fit in your hand and (almost) guaranteed to improve the quality of your tamp.
- Once you’ve ground your beans and tamped them properly, you’ll need to pour your shot into a suitable cup – our favourite receptacle is a heavyweight porcelain Rapha espresso cup. Thick walled porcelain espresso cups hold their heat better, which has a positive impact on the flavour.
The love between gravel riding and coffee isn’t going to fade any time soon and if you keep your eyes peeled at gravel events and bike shows (or trawl on-line auction sites), you too might end with a gravelly Object of Desire.