A few KCC club members also ride off-road outside of the Sunday road rides.
There is a lot of excellent gravel-style riding in the area, that a cyclocross/gravel bike or XC MTB makes the best of. Particularly good options are towards Avening, Nailsworth, Wotton-under-Edge and Stroud, and down the Fosse Way that ultimately ends up in Bath. Nothing we ride is ‘technical’, but there are gnarly bits – at most times of year you would need treaded rather than slick tyres, and occasionally an adventurous outlook. A club ride would typically be between 20-40 miles, on a mix of road and off-road sections, but at 50 miles and beyond other possibilities open up, like The Ridgeway, fast railway trackbed options around Calne, and harder but stunning riding via Dursley and Stroud.
Gravel rides happen, as a rule, less regularly than the KCC road rides, often on a Saturday, or on summer evenings. Join the Strava group for notifications.
The Kemble and White Horse Rounds
A challenging 100 mile gravel loop in Gloucestershire, The Kemble Round, was devised and ridden by two KCC members in June 2021 – it raises money for Great Western Air Ambulance Charity. In 2022 they added a sister route, The White Horse Round. With a recent route revision that’s now a 117 mile loop, rideable from Kemble but with an ‘official’ start of Bradford-on-Avon.