“Oooooh, that looks good. Where is it?” said my wife, as she looked over my shoulder to see what I was reading. Although it’s not designed as a coffee-table book, Ed Shoote’s newly published Gravel Rides Scotland guidebook gets the balance of useful and inspirational just right. Fresh off the presses, Ed’s book includes a total of 28 different routes liberally distributed across the majority of Scotland. Ride suggestions vary from relatively gentle day rides to multi-day bikepacking monsters and each one is backed up with a downloadable GPX file.
Ed’s book starts, as all good guidebooks should, with an overview of the subject, some guidance on how to use the book (and the routes), a section on safety and mountain etiquette and finishes with a potted history of gravel riding in Scotland. Even if you have been riding gravel/adventure bikes and/or going on bikepacking trips for years, we reckon you’ll still find something interesting here.
Ed has decided to split his guide into seven different areas of interest to gravel riders and bikepackers, with each area containing at least four different routes. Each ride starts with a description of the area and an overview of the route, followed by a clearly annotated map excerpt and step-by-step route instructions. So far, so similar to other guidebooks, so what makes Ed’s book stand out? In a word – clarity.
The design team have done a great job with the layout of the book – it’s crisp, easy to follow and has just the right level of detail. Some guidebooks are either too wordy or seem to skip over the vital bits you need to know like the fact there will be a boggy section between kmX and kmY where you will need to carry your bike, but it’s worth it because…. The quality of the imagery in the book is exemplary too. In a world of constant-scrolling and ever-shorter attention spans, we’re not sure that anyone will read every bit of text in the book, but we reckon any gravel rider or bikepacker who picked it up, would instantly be hooked on the imagery and would easily picture themselves and their friends heading out to try out one of the routes.
We chatted with Ed to get some insight into the process behind producing his book
Gravel Union - Can you tell us a little about your background and what inspired you to write a gravel guidebook?
Ed - I’ve always been a mad cyclist, starting out on road bikes, but switching to mountain biking in the late 90s. Bikes then took me all over the world - both mountain biking while I travelled and worked overseas, but I also got into touring by bike and it was on longer trips that I really fell in love with gravel riding. It was the ability to explore faster and further, going deeper into new places away from traffic and civilisation. After almost a decade of travelling around I returned to live in Scotland and quickly explored every corner I could. I got into endurance racing so my training led me to riding 1000s of miles across the country.
I have always photographed and written about my longer trips, both on my blog and for magazines, which I guess was the reason I had a recommendation to write this book. As I rarely say no to anything, and without an idea of the amount of work involved, I just said yes and here we are two years later!
GU - In a market already pretty full of cycling guidebooks, what makes yours stand out?
Ed - I believe this to be the first proper gravel riding guidebook published anywhere in the UK let alone Scotland. There’s books aimed at leisure cyclists on gravel, but nothing that really gets into the heart of what proper gravel riding now is. Which for me is adventures and challenging rides that use gravel as the surface in order to explore further and new places. The book includes routes that you can ride easily with drop bars but aren’t dull, they take you up big climbs and get into beautiful and wild places. There are easier routes in the book but no Sunday strolls along canal tow paths to coffee shops, which I think gravel or anything non-mountain biking has previously been interpreted as.
The book is also meant to be half practical and half inspirational, it’s probably too big to carry but includes good descriptions and mapping, combined with great photography taken in all weather conditions to inspire you to get out there!
GU - How did you go about researching the routes and deciding which ones to include in the book?
Ed - I was clear early on that it wasn’t going to be a guidebook with routes evenly dotted all over the country, half of which people would never bother travelling too. I wanted to focus on the best regions to visit with about 3-5 routes each to inspire weekends away. With this in mind, I quickly decided where my favourite regions were and set about finding the routes. It was really tough to pick - firstly I started out with about 60+ routes and gradually worked through them by riding or researching further and eventually whittled the list down to the 28 that I was happy with. Some weekends I rode 3 or 4 routes and none would make the book, others were instantly winners. Most of my research was done during Covid19 so most of the rides I did solo with a few older group ride pictures in there too. It also meant less travel by train than I might have liked too.
GU - Where there any bits of Scotland that you wanted to feature but couldn’t make work?
Ed - If I’m honest I really wanted a route on Isle of Arran but with Covid19 and then crazy ferry availability on weekends I never made it over to ride in time. I also figured if I found it that hard [just to get there] then others would too. I really wanted to include a section on the islands in general, but in reality there are just no really great gravel routes - there are a lot are dead ends, routes which involve epic hike a bikes or mostly road with token gravel. Especially for Skye, Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides. That’s the reason just one island is included on its own which does offer good gravel tracks and a real adventure but is very small!
GU - If you could only ride one route from your book for the rest of your days, which one would it be?
Ed - This is tough to answer but probably the route around Linn of Dee area and Mar lodge, I love this area and especially the wildlife you see here too, the same could be said for Glen Affric route as well to be fair. In reality, the Tweed Valley 4 forest loop is on my doorstep and I do ride it quite frequently and never get bored of it so maybe I should say that!
GU - Do you have any top tips for dealing with midges for anyone who might visit Scotland during the summer?
Ed - Don’t stop! You’ll not get bothered by midges on a gravel bike unless you’re really slow or stop too much! In reality I tend to plan longer bikepacking trips in early or late season to avoid them and limit what I do in in July and August. It is really only camping out that is bad, so find spots with a good breeze or higher up in the hills. Take one of the head nets, they look silly but work, then use smidge on exposed body parts and quickly put long sleeve layers on when you stop. Generally the Scottish Borders are OK for midges too except for the Newcastleton route. To be honest it is the ticks that bother me more, they seem to be worse than ever, mostly because I jump into the heather for photos so I rarely go a trip without finding some. The trick is thoroughly checking exposed limbs frequently through the day but also taking a tick remover so can get them off ASAP.
GU - Do you have plans to write any other guidebooks or gravel-focussed books in the future?
Ed - To be honest this was such a lot of work I didn’t think I would do another one, but seeing how well it has been received I am now thinking of the next one. I still think it would be Scottish focused as the riding is obviously so much better north of the border. There’s also scope for a volume two from all the areas that just missed out! I would also like to write up all my adventures across Central Asia too at some point, it would be niche but I love that part of the world having completed 5 tours there to date from a week or two to three months.
If you’d like more inspirational gravel imagery and stories you can check out Ed’s blog here or follow him on social media here