When gravel riding is both what you do for your profession and it's your main love outside of work too, how do you find the right balance? Does everything feel like work or have you managed to find gravelly nirvana? That's just one of the questions we put to our guest in the latest Gravel Union Talks podcast. Andrea Lodder works in the marketing team at Merida Bikes and is a gravel influencer, vlogger and journalist so everything about her life seems to be bike-related. We chat with her about finding the balance, but also about the newly launched Terre di Pisa Bike Trail, which she got to test out last month. You can listen to the latest episode right here. 

Gravel Union Talks is a podcast series full of inspiring stories, news and events from the world of gravel biking. Each month hosts Carlo and Olly will be chatting with guests who are passionate about riding off the beaten track… adventure riding, bike packing and gravel racing. 

In this episode:

• Andrea Lodder who works in the marketing team at Merida Bikes, talks about her life as a "gravel influencer", vlogger and journalist and how she manages to balance her love of cycling when it's both her work and her hobby.
• Terre di Pisa Bike Trail - a new bikepacking route that has recently been launched in central Tuscany.
• Gravel Union Talks podcast with hosts Carlo van Nistelrooy and Olly Townsend.
• GU’s editor-in-chief Olly on last month’s most popular articles on the Gravel Union platform.

Links in this episode:

• Gravel Inspiration - Gravel riding with a legend
  • There are not many sports where you can even get close to a superstar and former world champion, let alone spend an entire day riding with them, but on his recent adventure to take part in the TransCordilleras bikepacking rally, that’s exactly what happened for Jorge Padrones. He got to spend a day racing with former road race world champion Annemiek Van Vleuten who, after retiring from racing on the road, has taken up gravel riding. Would he be able to keep up? Would he be too star-struck to communicate with her? Read on to find out how he got on.
• Armchair Adventure - Classics Story
  • At this time of year, many gravel riding fans probably spend a good chunk of time watching the different races that form part of the Spring Classics season on the TV. Although there isn’t a direct link between a love of bikepacking or adventure riding and a love of pavé, a lot of the principles are the same – riding an inappropriate bike on a surface that it’s not really designed for and having a lot of fun in the process. There’s a big difference though between watching it on TV and actually doing it in real life though. And an even bigger difference between riding one of the Spring Classics events and riding all of them, non-stop, over the course of just over 80 hours. That’s exactly what Jesko von Werthern did back in 2022 and we caught up with him to get the inside story. 
• News - Rebound 2024
  • Can you imagine a gravel event with 100,000 participants where the target for the combined total distance ridden is 10 million miles? That's what the organisers of Rebound 2024 hope to pull off this year and if they succeed, it will be the world's biggest gravel event. To find out how to join in the fun,