Riding the Dirty Reiver 2017
5am. The sun glistens on the reservoir, and bounces off morning dew. Kielder Forest - the largest forest in the UK, sits silent; its paths and tracks ready to welcome the largest gravel event in the UK - The Dirty Reiver 200. A Reiver was a border knight - an armoured horseback rider, patrolling the border between Scotland and England. Today, 800 riders will take to the same trails and tracks that were ridden by the Reivers; except these riders will be on a plethora of cyclocross bikes, 'gravel' bikes and mountain bikes. 200 kilometres of flat-out dusty racing… The Dirty Reiver starts at Kielder Castle The Ride Massed in front of Kielder Castle, the pre-event kit chat continues; as it has done for the preceding months. What tyre width are those? How's that Lauf suspension fork? Have you double wrapped your bar tape? Personally, I'm more concerned about how many flapjacks I can wolf down at each feed station, and whether I have enough supplies in my ba...