New ‘hard grit’ (or ‘easy grit’) options for Bergamont Gritopia

So how tough do you like your gravel riding? We’re very pleased to announce a new format for our big gravel adventure.

The ride (on Sat 8 June) is based at Transcend Festival in Innerleithen, and the course will offer three more or less separate loops – you can do one, two or all three parts of the course with your results showing riders listed with others who have completed the same distance.

Doing the whole thing will be a tough day out – with around 90km distance and 2000m of ascent to do. There’s a variety of surfaces too – from tarmac between forest sections to forest singletrack, grit roads and some rough loose forest access tracks – it’s a proper adventure.

The idea is that you can take on as much (or as little) riding as you want, and the festival HQ is plum in the middle of the course, so riders can head back for food, beer and the festival vibe whenever they’ve had enough.

Section 1: Cardrona Forest – 17km/350m ascent

Section 2: Elibank & Traquair – 31km/790m

Section 3: Leithen Water forest – 40km/795m

Gritopia is more of a ‘gravel sportive’ style of event – it’s definitely not a race – so different lengths of course just means the gravel fun is accessible to a wider variety of riders. To respect the wishes of landowners we’re not at liberty to publish course maps in advance, but we will be sending out detailed route descriptions before the event so everyone can choose their preferred distance.

What’s the best bike? A gravel bike with decent volume tyres will do best over the distance and road sections, and take the sting out of the rough tracks and some rocky singletrack. It’s up to you though!