Gravel Culture: Gravelfoyle – more than just a one trick pony
Posted By Gravel Union
On 9 December 2020
Bringing gravel riders to an area for a weekend event is fantastic, but the benefits to the local community can often be short lived. A local community interest group in Scotland think they’ve found the perfect solution, where the benefits to the region will be there long after the gazebos have been packed away and the racers have gone home.
Photo @jered gruber
If this image doesn’t make you want to pack up your gravel bike and head to Scotland in search of gravelly adventures, then we’ll eat our gravel casquette!
We had news recently of the launch of something new for the gravel world. Not an event, or an organised ride or even a gravelly party. This is something much bigger – it’s gravel riding on a community-wide scale. Gravelfoyle, is a project based in the home of the Dukes Weekender gravel event and is all about showcasing how brilliant the local area is for gravel riding. The organisers are hoping that rather just focussing on an (albeit super popular and well-loved) weekend event, that locals and visitors alike will think of the area as the ‘go to’ destination for gravel riding.
For anyone not familiar with the area, the base for the Gravelfoyle project is the village of Aberfolyle, located on the edge of the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park roughly an hour’s drive north of Glasgow. The village was chosen to be the centre of the Gravelfoyle project partly due to its ready-made infrastructure for visitors, but also due to the proximity of nearly 200kms of perfect gravel riding trails. The Gravelfoyle name for the project came about after the very successful running of the Dukes Weekender events in 2018 and 2019. It was initially used as a social media hashtag for the events, but when thinking about a potential name for the project, the Gravelfoyle name seemed like the perfect choice.
Photo @Andy McCandlish
The project is due to be launched in Spring 2021 and will initially feature three new waymarked gravel routes – 10kms, 20kms and 30kms will be available and will head out to the stunning countryside around Loch Ard, Loch Chon and into the Loch Ard Forest. By offering a range of distances on the waymarked routes, the Gravelfoyle team are hoping to attract a wide range of riders – everything from family days out to weekend warriors. The long-term aim is for the Gravelfoyle trails to be connected into the wider regional trail network – reducing the reliance on needing to drive to get to the area and spreading the economic benefits of the development even more widely.
Partnership and collaboration are at the heart of the Gravelfoyle project. Funding for the first three waymarked trails has come from Forth Valley and Lomond LEADER, Forestry and Land Scotland, Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park and The Strathard Development Trust, which have all committed to providing support for the future development of access infrastructure.
To give you an idea of how fantastic the riding and the scenery is, check out the promo video for the project:
To find out more about the Gravelfoyle project, head over to their website. We’ll report back on how the project is progressing and look forward to seeing lots of you out on the Gravelfoyle trails in the future!
Photo @Stu Thomson