Gravel riding is booming in popularity. Sales of gravel bikes are up by 11 per cent on 2022, bucking a wider industry trend that has witnessed the ‘worst mechanical bike sales this century’. WorldTour talent is taking part (and winning) in the UCI Gravel World Championships, and new gravel events are popping up all the time.
But while interest and investment in the accessible, low-traffic form of cycling are still on the rise, there are potential dark clouds on the horizon for the all-road format – particularly when it comes to organised events that riders use for racing and training inspiration.
The issue is land use. Gravel prides itself on free and easy access to a wealth of bridleways, forest tracks and, in its US homeland, miles and miles of dirt roads. But hosting an event on that land requires permits, liability insurance and the approval of a whole host of stakeholders. And when one doesn’t play ball, an event organiser’s meticulously laid plans can come crashing down like a house of cards.
In the UK, the September 2024 edition of the King’s Cup Gravel Festival was the latest victim of disagreements between landowners and event organisers – Forestry England increasing permit costs beyond what was deemed financially viable.
However, it’s not a UK-only issue. From outright bans in Ireland to one of the biggest races in the USA having to make numerous concessions to get its permit renewed, disagreements between event organisers and land owners appear to be part of a growing trend that could threaten the future of gravel racing – and by extension gravel itself.
Mixed terrain
The inaugural King’s Cup event was held in 2021 and combined a gravel sportive with the British Gravel Championships. Located near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, its sportive route linked King’s Forest and Thetford Forest (both managed by Forestry England), while the championship route was contained predominantly to King’s Forest.
“The event village with all the infrastructure was on private land and bordered right up against Forestry England land, so the route would go out from there,” explains Maximilian Wussler, co-founder of Red On Sports, which organised the event.
In its first three years, it grew from a one-day affair with 650 riders to 1,200 participants spread over a weekend-long festival. “We forecasted growth to about 1,400 riders for [the 2024] event, but had been looking at alternative venue options for 2025,” says Wussler. “There was recognition that there was uncertainty in the space. As a commercial business, you need to be managing your risk with a decent bit of foresight.”
The uncertainty surrounded Forestry England’s new national pricing structure, which would charge 20 per cent of total income for permits for events and activities.
“The arrangement in the years we held it was on a per-rider basis and was nothing unreasonable,” he says. “In 2023, we were initially informed about the new pricing structure. The pricing structure assumes that an event and all its infrastructure takes place on Forestry England land, whilst we were in quite a unique situation. We had contact directly with the local rangers, there was a negotiation and it essentially came back down to a per-rider fee that worked well for us and them.”
Red On Sports plans its events up to 18 months in advance, but could only apply for a Forestry England permit within a three-month window that was 'no earlier than six months and no later than three months' before the event.
“There's an inherent risk in that booking model,” concedes Wussler, but it was one the company had taken for its first three editions.
In February 2024, the team was informed that an online permit application process, rather than contact with the local ranger, would be required. Wussler says that with hindsight this is when it became clear that “there was a much bigger push to get to what essentially constitutes 20 per cent of gross revenue”.
Dan Cook, Forestry England's national cycling infrastructure manager, says: “Our usual rate for activities and events is 20 per cent of total income, but we offer a reduced charge if the activities and events support our strategic goals, such as attracting more diverse visitors to the forest.
“This year’s proposed fees for the King’s Cup in Suffolk were meant to bring the event closer in line with our pricing structure. However, to support the event’s growth, we offered a fee of £7 per rider, which is still below our standard rate.”
Wussler says that Forestry England's pricing increase was still too much to make the event financially viable, and due to the majority of entries having already been sold around the time of these conversations, it wasn’t a case of passing those costs onto consumers in increased ticket prices.
Red On Sports pulled the plug on the King’s Cup in June, moving the British Gravel Championship to another of its events, Raiders Gravel. “Venue hire and land use is not insubstantial at any of our events, but if we look at the budget [the Forestry England permit fee] would be the biggest slice of the pie,” says Wussler.
The issue isn’t universal in England though. Yorkshire-based Struggle Events hosted the second edition of its gravel-based Borderlands event in September and its co-founder Matt Mannakee is confident that all landowners, including the Yorkshire Dales National Park, are on board for 2025: “[We] have only really come across positivity with regards to landowners and residents in Yorkshire. We are very focused on respecting residents and the national parks, having little impact, and giving back to the local community.
“The key issues are focusing on keeping routes to public bridleways where possible, respecting the access requirements for farmers and residents in remote areas, stressing the importance of closing gates to keep livestock in or marshalling gates, staying to the path, and not disturbing ground-nesting birds, absolutely no littering and the event and participants leave no trace.
“Ultimately, if you deliver a low-impact event that respects the local community and gives back in some way (to local businesses, paying farmers for land or venue use, or a donation to the national park) you should be able to create an event with longevity.”
Ireland’s outright ban
Although things are mixed in England, the situation is dire in Ireland, where the Forestry England equivalent, Coillte, has enforced an outright ban on gravel events on its 4,400km2 of managed land.
The third edition of the Galway Gravel Grinder was just one sportive that was cancelled because of the new rule.
Race organiser Grant Fay says he believes Coillte’s decision isn’t just aimed at events: “[Coillte] said that it's an insurance issue, that it's a risk issue, and that the lands we would be using weren't purpose-built for cycling. Effectively, the forest tracks and roads are built for lorries and for work trucks to go in and do maintenance on the windmills, and therefore it's too dangerous.
“We tried to push back and say ‘We provide you an indemnity, we're running the event on the weekends and there's no work being done at that time’. We tried to make the argument ‘Why penalise the event?’. But I think they want us off their property on all the other 364 days. It's the Joes and Janes out training for these events on their properties that they worry about.”
Fay adds that, without a change in the rules, there’s no way of running the Galway Gravel Grinder again, and this could have a longer-lasting impact on gravel riding in Ireland.
“In Galway, Coillte property is the only place where you can have a significant enough infrastructure to run an event properly – otherwise, you're on and off boreen roads and back roads, and then it becomes very unsafe, and very difficult within these small communities who don't want 500 cyclists coming in and out of the roads. Without access to that infrastructure, I think it harms the sport,” says Fay.
Creative concessions
While the situation in Ireland is bleak, there are green shoots elsewhere. In the US, in particular, the discipline is viewed as the cycling scene’s saviour. But it’s not all rosy.
Steamboat, Colorado-based SBT GRVL is one of the best-known gravel events in the US and its elite race often attracts stars of the Life Time Grand Prix series such as Keegan Swenson. But the organiser, Amy Charity, has faced opposition from local ranchers and even the Colorado State Patrol that could have spelled the end.
“In the [2023] event, our course circled back on itself and we had riders that were going both directions. One of the biggest complaints we heard was it was really hard to get out of your driveway if you lived on the course,” says Charity.
She adds that the August date overlapped with the area’s country fair, while local ranchers highlighted litter as an issue, along with people going to the toilet on private property instead of in portable toilets.
“We addressed all of those concerns by changing our courses very dramatically, ramped up our cleanup crew, substantially increased the number of porta potties out on course, and changed our messaging – we need to change our behavior if we want to stick around.”
The feedback was broadly positive, but those who were very outspoken from the beginning weren’t swayed. “The complaints we hear now are, ‘this is affecting our way of life, just in principle’, so that feels more philosophical as opposed to ‘somebody was littering on my driveway’.”
After the 2024 event, the Colorado State Patrol threw a spanner in the works and said they could no longer support it because racing is against state law on open roads. “That was something new that we hadn't heard [before],” adds Charity. “It’s something that not only SBT has done for five years, but there are dozens of races across the state that are thriving and they have racing on open public roads.”
To secure its permit for 2025, SBT GRVL had to make further adaptations, including setting up a separate circuit-style gravel race in nearby Hayden with rolling road closures.
But with the permit renewed on an annual basis, Charity doesn’t believe SBT GRVL is out of the woods yet: “We know we're not done with the work. Our objective until our race in June is ‘Let's understand how we can execute a great race, put on exactly what we've planned, and then how do we have additional positive impacts in the rural community?’.”
Rocky road
In the short- and long-term, the event organisers for the King’s Cup, Galway Gravel Grinder and SBT GRVL believe the future of gravel events, and the discipline itself, is rocky.
“Gravel is experiencing enormous growth, and there are a lot of players trying to jump into that market now and capture that,” says Wussler. “If we assume nothing changes from a Forestry England perspective, you could have a situation like the road sportive market where you're suddenly having an influx of low-quality events that are then probably trying to skirt around the rules – use of bridleways, farm tracks, things like that. You could run into a scenario where safety isn't a high priority anymore.”
Fay, meanwhile, believes it could spell the end of the road for gravel in Ireland. “I'm hearing from people that own stores, that there was a huge increase in gravel bikes through Covid and a little bit after, but a lot of that's died and that it's that it's shifting back to mountain and road cycling, at least [in Ireland].”
Charity adds that it’s up to event organisers to find the right balance. “I'm not ready to give up on gravel. I think it has done such positive things for the cycling industry – it's changed the face of cycling. I think we continue to find ways that we can work within our rural communities and keep it growing, but adapt in ways that [minimise the impact on] those who live in the remote places and don't want cyclists out there near where they live, and continue to do all of these great things.”
