Gravel Rides Northumberland - book review

I recently bought myself a copy of this book and thought I would share my impressions about it to others. It features 15 different rides of lengths from 10 to 104km covering a variety of different terrains from pretty straight forward for beginners to more technical for more expert gravel cyclists, there are some fabulous routes in this book. 

The author, Jordan Matthews, is an experienced local cyclist having raced on and off road. He came through the Hetton Hawks Cycling Club, and has completed some epic events including the Trans Continental Race from the Black Sea to the Atlantic coast as well as some shorter but equally epic ones. 

The book starts with some very useful details about gravel cycling including details about rights of way, bike packing and general safety etc, all useful stuff and certainly not time wasted studying this information. It is then broken into sections by rides, starting with the easier routes, followed by the straightforward and finishing with the more challenging routes.  

I have actually done some or part of many of these routes in previous years and can certainly recommend them, including the South Tyne Trail (which can be easily extended to a ride though Alston and Garrigill to the source of the River South Tyne), Hexhamshire Common, North Pennine Mining Circular and the various Kielder Forest routes. Some routes can be combined for the more ambitious cyclist.

The book includes a link to GPX files to enable you to download the routes to your GPS cycle computer, 1:50K Ordnance Survey maps with the routes marked on them. The description of each route includes a bit of information and history of the local area as well as detailed directions of the route, pace notes if you like. 

I can certainly commend this book to anyone interested in doing some well researched excellent local gravel cycling routes.