GBDuro is apparently best described as “a scrappy rolling picnic through Britain’s ever changing landscape”. It’s a 2000km self-supported bike packing event which goes from Land’s End in the far south-west to John O’Groats in the far north east. And it starts on Saturday.
The event follows The Racing Collective’s GBDIVIDE route and is described as being “designed to embrace the versatility of 'all-road' bikes to cover big distances on new roads and ancient ways, immersing riders in the rich and unique history that has shaped the British Isles.”
The ride consists of four timed stages, each of which are roughly 500kms in length. The rider with the lowest aggregate time over the four stages will be declared the winner, but following the ethos of a self-supported bikepacking event, there aren’t any prizes – just a sense of satisfaction for having made it safely from one end of the UK to the other.
The event organisers are keen to minimise the environmental impact of the event, so have made it a #noflyride event. That means riders must get to/from the start/finish without flying.
But this is just part of a bigger environmental goal – the organisers have a 'leave no trace' mission as their main target for the event. You can find out more details here.
We’re going to be following the event through the eyes of Mark Beaumont,
perhaps previously best known for being the Guinness Round the World record holder, but now completely addicted to gravel and adventure riding.
We’re going to be chatting with Mark over on the Gravel Union Instagram account this Thursday at 19.00BST/20.00CEST. Let us know if you have any questions you would like us to put to him.
You can find out more details about the event on their website. They will have live-tracking of the competitors – the link will be live on their website from the 12th August.