There are products for every niche. Take gravel cycling, a pursuit that has seen a great rise in popularity in recent years. Gravel bikes sit somewhere between a road bike and a mountain bike, providing more grip than the former, if not the rugged technical ability of the latter. Well, in the last few years, gravel running shoes have started to appear too. Like gravel bikes, they’re closer to their road conquering siblings. These are no luggy trail running shoes, though they do provide more grip on the rough stuff than a road shoe – making them an intriguing prospect for Parkruns, easy trails and the long stretches of gravel they’re primarily designed for.
All conquering French brand Salomon is better known for its trail footwear than its road runners, though they’re clearly keen to muscle in on the new gravel trend. I recently searched for “what is gravel running?” on Google and the first article that popped up a 'What is Gravel Running' blog post by… Salomon. It predictably paints gravel running as the happy medium between road and trail, a blended approach whereby you pound the asphalt before hitting the gravel of your local park.
