Dorset gravel dash 100 - Harder than you think!
It’s the end of a long off-season break, bruised ribs from an MTB crash 5 weeks ago have just about healed, yet, I’m standing at the start of a 100 miles “gravel dash” in Swanage, Dorset.
100 miles doesn’t seem too much, right? After all, I race longer and train close to that distance regularly. Small detail, though: that’s on paved roads… While driving to Swanage where the event starts and finishes, I already started to realise what I was letting myself into. Hill, hills, and more hills. Chalky cliffs. Some flooded fields… I could already picture crashes, a mud bath and walking a lot.
It was going to be a long day either way.
The extraordinary 2 minutes race briefing went something like “don’t be a dick”, and “it’s not a bloody race”. The rest was up to us all riders, with our navigation devices fully charged (hopefully), and almost a full day ahead to clear the course. At least the weather was perfect, albeit with a bit of a breeze.
Emma "grammin'". The calm before the dash
The atmosphere at the start was humorous, people checking one another’s choice of steed for the day and the various amounts of kit everyone transported. Cross bikes, MTBs of all sorts, a few fat bikes and a few single speed (!!). Everybody laughing, no one looking apprehensive, really, before we all set off through the streets of Swanage, straight up the hills and the first chalky bits.
I was here because I’ve got supposedly the best bike for the job (a Kinesys ATR Tripster), and Emma Osenton has been raising my FOMO levels to 11 to try this kind of ride for a long time. She’s lives in the Yorkshire Dales, and does this sort of stuff all the time! I managed to follow her for about 4 miles until the first hill where she disappeared in the distance! My legs were already on fire. See you at the finish!!
Tip #1:
This is not the right event to kick-start a new race season after 6 weeks off!
It was a bit chilly at the start, but we all warmed up quickly on that first climb: I was already out of gears and already feeling my legs. Uh oh! What’s that? Turns out CX gearing with 36x28 was still too big for this! This would be repeated over and over and over again for the next 94 miles… A CX bike is a good option for this event. Gearing choice, however, is not to be overlooked.
Tip #2:
The best option is probably a 1x drivetrain with a super small gear to go up steep bits, or at the very least a 32 at the back!
Everything that goes up must……. come back down! On the road: YAY!!! On big chalky gravel paths: a lot less “yay”.
Hanging on for dear life, I thank the gods of disc brakes and their amazing modulation, but I was still locking front and back wheel now and again and cursing my roadie up-bringing. “More REAR brake, less chances of stacking it down those hills!” was what I was repeating myself.
I spent most of the day alone, my nose stuck to my Garmin screen checking that I was on the correct route, passing some people from time to time, but mostly getting overtaken by people with proper skills. I caught up plenty of riders when back on the black stuff, but I wasn’t there for that. I was here to get my ass handed over to me by some punishing countryside trails. And I haven’t been disappointed.
Tip #3:
There’s no quick fix for lack of skills.
I’m RUBBISH downhill off-road, and have no confidence at all on the trails. I walked a fair bit! To be fair, bruising my ribs on an MTB a few weeks ago probably did dent my confidence. But lack of skills still shows!
At some point, there’s a nice long sweeping road descent. Nice! I liked that! What I didn’t like, though, was my front tire skidding and only avoiding a crash at 50kph around a downhill bend because of some tire/road grip miracle. Turns out my front wheel was losing pressure a lot quicker than I thought. I could feel it being a bit bouncy prior to that, but I put that down to the general low pressure I run on those nice 40mm tubeless tires. Muppet! I also had my headset come loose at the top of a gravel descent, front and back skewers getting undone (the magic is strong on the trails!) and my shiny brand new pedals refuse to let me unclip before finishing in a hedge with a perfect prat-fall. No biggie.
Tip #4:
Don’t ignore warning signs from your kit.
Tip #5:
Don’t try anything new on event (this is not a race!) day!
After this, I spent the rest of my day checking (and pumping) my front tire back up regularly. That was a good excuse to stop and admire the scenery which was beautiful with the day’s weather.
Mind, there were a lot of other stops along the way. The first few field gates are no big deal. “Entering a field of sheep”. “Entering a field of bulls”. All fun! “Look, ma: I’m off-road!!”. By mile 50, I had lost count of how many field gates I had to open and close, how many had swung back and smashed my hands and the back wheel. By mile 80, this was far from fun anymore. I wanted to go home, not open and close gates. My arse was sore. My hands had blisters because of the rattling on the “gravel” and hanging on the bars like a madman to manage the brakes, I had almost no water left, and my shiny new bike was caked in mud.
Tip #6:
This is not the Thames path “gravel”. This is proper punishing stuff!
The Dorset dash is organised by locals who know their off-road stuff pretty well. And that showed regularly around the route. Like the proper downhill trail that I couldn’t even contemplate riding. Or the single track descent on chalk gravel, with no grip, and a large tree trunk at head high slap bang in the middle where you’re supposed to be at speed. (I avoided that one, thankfully) Or the last decent 5Km from the finish that was so steep hikers had to stop to take a breather. Not ridden down this one either!
But aside from those technical bits which I hated mostly because of my appalling ability off-road, the rest of the route was great. Challenging up some steep hills, beautiful through green fields and forest trails. I even liked the mud! The scenery was fantastic. Being mostly off-road, there was almost no traffic all day, other than a few sheep and bulls, and a flock of bank holiday tourists on the beach at the finish. But there was a lot less “gravel” than I thought there would be.
This is not a bloody race. There are no results. Just the joy of having conquered a pretty tough event that was supposed to be “just gravel” in around 10h…
Riding under the checkered flag (still not a race!!), cheering the other riders coming home, the beers, fish and chips and friendliness of everyone rounded up an awesome day out in the country.
So like everything that’s challenging, there were bits I loved, bits I hated. I wanted to go home about ¾ in, but the camaraderie and the general fun nature of the event will make me go back for more “gravel” fun.
Tip #7:
If you fancy this kind of stuff but have never done it before, just do yourself one big favour: chose a shorter one!
More please!!
If you want to do it yourself in your own time, here’s the GPX file. You’ll ask yourself a few times “Really? Through here?”. The answers are both “Yes”. Just follow the route!
Good luck!
