But for me, until a few years ago, if the pavement wasn’t smooth, I didn’t touch it. My friend would trick me into riding gravel roads while I was still rocking 21mm tubulars back in 2014. It didn’t make much sense to me—why would anyone want to do this? To me, the road was life. Why would I willingly choose to be the world’s most uncomfortable person? That all changed a few years ago when Frank from Racer Sportif lent me a CX-G to ride, fitted with 40mm tires. By today’s standards, that’s actually pretty narrow.

Until 2022, I had never ridden anything beyond a 25mm tire, so that probably explains why I never gave gravel a chance. The 40mm tires felt like mountain bike tires, and honestly, I was getting tired of riding the same roads all the time (not to mention dealing with drivers). Since I had this gravel bike now, I figured I might as well try one of the more popular races around here—Paris to Ancaster. Naturally, I decided to train for p2a (which is a 70km race) doing 200+ km gravel rides.

I went to the website and found one of the bigger rides near Caldon called the Terra Cotta Twist. I’m not really a fan of driving places just to ride my bike. I don’t mind the commute—if anything, it’s a nice warm-up and cool-down. So, the ride ended up being about 234km, with a 50km commute to the gravel each way. The gravel route itself was 134km, and it did not disappoint. 95% of the ride was on gravel. I got passed by maybe five cars the entire way up there.

The only thing I didn’t prepare for? Water and food. I’m usually pretty good about refueling on the road, but for this route, I did zero research. I just pulled the route into my Garmin and set off. Much to my disappointment, there were no gas stations or general stores anywhere. I ended up riding 60km with 100ml of water and no food. Eventually, I found a gas station and got back to 100%, but that experience was not recommended. Still, hey—it was an adventure.

I didn’t end up doing much gravel that year. I just wanted to keep riding road. I didn’t fall in love with gravel on that ride, but I could see why everyone was into it—mainly, it felt safer and provided a new sense of adventure.

The roads up north in Ontario are so quiet. Since 2022, I’ve basically been riding the same route a few times a week, and I started getting bored of it. A few times, I’d take a gravel road back (on my skinny 28mm tires), and that definitely started changing things. Last year, I took some roads that were so beautiful, desolate, and rolling that I told myself: I need to get a proper gravel bike and start doing this more in 2025.

By the end of summer, I wasn’t riding much road—I got a little bored of it and was riding my mountain bike a lot in the Don Valley trails. I loved not being next to cars all the time and not having to constantly shoulder-check.

I love mountain biking, but it’s not a replacement for the road. I love the miles—leaving the house at 6 AM and coming back at 5 PM is something that’s just a little harder to do on a mountain bike.

So I finally gave in and built up a sweet gravel bike. I hope to ride it more than any of my other bikes this year.

The other thing is, I miss doing 500+ km rides. But on the road, it’s becoming increasingly dangerous as it gets darker. I never had a fear of riding at night—I just got used to it over the years—but I can only imagine how incredible it would be to do a huge gravel bikepacking trip. That, to me, sounds like the ultimate ride.

We have so many gravel routes in Ontario that it seems like a shame to keep riding the same roads all the time.

There are so many great resources out there to find amazing bikepacking routes. I’ve spent most of this winter planning out a bunch of them that I’d love to do. If you’re looking for routes near you, I highly recommend checking out:

I’m sure there’s some overlap between these sites, but they all have routes, photos, and new discoveries if you look hard enough. I, for one, can’t wait for the season to start.