A week with a Camino gravel bike

Steph Wetherell shares her experience of riding a Sonder Camino Gravel bike and learns that finding your cycling community is key.

After being a city commuter cyclist for years, over the past few years I’ve discovered the joys of longer rides and begun exploring the area around Bristol. However I lack confidence cycling with others and only ever cycle on my own or with my partner, and whilst my bike is fine for on the road, it’s uncomfortable and not got the right gearing for off road riding.

At the start of the year I set myself the goal of trying gravel riding and getting more confident with cycling with others. To help support this, I’ve been taking part in Roll Models, a Bristol based mentoring programme to empower more women and marginalised genders to get riding adventurously. Through this I’ve been matched with a brilliant mentor and met an amazing wider group of cyclists.

To help me try gravel riding and see if it was something I wanted to do more of, Alpkit kindly lent me a Camino gravel bike for a week and I planned a load of adventures to make the most of it.

First up was a camping trip with the Roll Models cohort out in the Mendips - never one to do things by halves, my first gravel ride was also my first bikepacking trip. After navigating the tricky puzzle of packing all my camping gear into bags and working out exactly on the bike I’m supposed to put the tent poles, I met up with the rest of the group and headed off. We took a lovely route out of Bristol that took in roads, some great gravel paths and a beautiful bit of grassy hillside. Even with a fully loaded bike, I was amazed how the gearing helped me get up hills and deal with some bumpy terrain, and I arrived at the campsite with a massive grin on my face.

After a fun night at the campsite that included a hilarious egg and spork race and toasting marshmallows around a fire, we headed back to the city the next day along another lovely route, even if it did feature a ridiculously steep rocky section that we decided to push our bikes up.

The weather turned damp during the week, but I made it up for a soggy after work ride with my mentor. It really surprised me how more fun riding in the rain was on a bike that could handle the conditions and it was a great way to discover some new paths in the area around my house.

On the last day I organised a group ride with some friends - showing how much more confidence I have cycling in a group - and headed out on a local loop. There were some more technical parts to the route than I’d done before, but with a bit of encouragement and support from the rest of the group I was soon bouncing along happily.

What are my top takeaways from the week? Gears are great, finding your cycling community is key, and gravel bikes are SO MUCH FUN. I think I might need one.