Opinion: Pro gravel racing is good for the Spirit of Gravel

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or you are new to gravel as a cycling genre, you’ll have come across the term ‘Spirit of Gravel’ before. It’s hard to miss – a phrase used liberally by those in the cycling media – but finds its greatest use among marketers and influencers. It is also one of those terms that can seemingly mean all things to all people.

To some, just riding a gravel bike is the Spirit of Gravel (henceforth abbreviated to ‘SoG’). To others it’s bikepacking. To some, it’s strategically underbiking, which oddly would then make Paris-Roubaix SoG. It’s community, it’s camping, it’s 90’s mountain bikes, it’s friction shifting, it’s ultra racing, it’s bike touring, but above all, it is fundamentally anti-mainstream. 

The thread linking every mention of SoG is a railing against the status quo, whether it’s a brand telling you that its new bike-packing bag will imbue you with an independent spirit, or the arms race of gravel and ultra events becoming ever more difficult, remote, and generally unpleasant in an attempt to out-SoG each other, it’s all a play to make you feel cool, and basically not-a-roadie. 

How has the Spirit of Gravel changed?