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.
