There’s a lot of places a bike can take you. You can ride in the city if you like, although it’s never much fun playing in traffic. In Tasmania we’re lucky to have a network of forestry roads and other assorted dirt and gravel byways that don’t see many cars. This is a Very Good Thing indeed.

Picton River Valley.

We’ve been exploring these roads for a few years now and have discovered some pretty amazing spots that can be reached with a little effort and determination. These photos are a selection of my favourites from those explorations. Some had an outing on the Tassie Gravel page I did a couple of years back.

Surprisingly we have learned that equipment isn’t as critical as you would think. Road bikes go ok, cyclocross or ‘gravel’ bikes go well too. The key to success seems to be the careful selection of tyres. Best results seem to come with 28mm wide tyres, although we’ve seen everything from 23mm to 40mm without any particularly memorable disasters, though it’s not through lack of tempting fate.