Get yourself and your bike ready for fall gravel riding in BC

Fall might be the best gravel season on the Coast. The first rains pack down the summer dust, the forest roads go quiet, and the air finally has some bite to it. Here's what to carry on a fall gravel ride so you can enjoy all of that and still get home before dark.

The difference from road riding comes down to one thing: how far you are from help.

On a road ride, a mechanical is a phone call. There's traffic, there's cell coverage, and worst case you walk to a bus stop. Thirty minutes up a forest service road off the Sea to Sky, none of that is true. There's no signal, no shortcut, and nobody driving past.

So on gravel, you carry the things a road rider can count on finding along the way.

We've split this into two parts. The first is getting yourself ready: clothing, planning, food and water. The second is getting your bike ready: sealant, repair kit, lights, fenders and where it all goes.

Most people dress for the ride. In fall you want to dress for the stop.

While you're pedalling, you're making plenty of heat. The moment you pull over to fix a flat, that stops. Now you're standing on a wet forest road in damp kit, and you cool down fast. A five-minute fix in July can feel like twenty in November.

What to wear and carry:

• A waterproof shell: This is the one layer that matters most. Rain is a given on the Coast in fall, and wet clothing pulls heat out of you far faster than cold air does. Look for something that packs small enough to live in your bag on dry days.
• A warm base or mid layer: A long-sleeve merino or thermal jersey under your shell covers most fall days. You can always unzip; you can't add warmth you didn't bring.
• Full-finger gloves, plus a spare pair if it's wet: It's hard to fix a flat with numb fingers. Getting a tire bead over the rim or pushing a plug into a hole takes grip and feel, and cold hands lose both.
• A packable vest: It packs to almost nothing and gives you a big warmth boost on long descents.
• Warm socks and shoe or toe covers: Feet get soaked first on wet gravel and warm up last.

If you're on the fence about a layer, bring it. You'll rarely regret carrying a jacket you didn't wear.

The best piece of gear for a fall gravel ride is free. Tell someone where you're going and when you'll be back. Send them the route and a rough return time. It takes thirty seconds and it's worth more than anything else in your bag.

Set your turnaround time by the trees, not the sunset. Under the second-growth forest around here, you lose usable light well before the sunset time on your phone. Work out when you need to be heading back and stick to it, even if the ride's going well.

Food and water:

• Bring more than you think you need: There are no shops or cafés up a forest road, and fall rides tend to run longer than planned once you add a mechanical or a wrong turn.
• Eat early and keep eating: Cold weather hides hunger. By the time you feel it, you're already behind.
• Drink even when it's cool: You still sweat under a shell, and it's easy to come home dehydrated on a cold day.

Keep your phone warm. Cold drains phone batteries quickly. Carry it in an inside pocket close to your body, not in a bar bag, so it still has charge when you need the map or a call.

This is the one most riders miss.

Most of us add sealant when we set up tubeless tires in the spring, then forget about it. The tires hold air, so it feels like everything's fine. But sealant dries out over time, and a hot summer speeds that up a lot. By fall, there may be only a thin skin of dried sealant left in the tire and very little liquid.

That's a problem you won't notice until you need it. A tire with dry sealant holds air perfectly on a normal day. Then you pick up a puncture thirty kilometres from the car, and there's nothing left to seal it.

What to do now:

• Check how much is left: Remove the valve core and dip a zip tie or a sealant dipstick into the bottom of the tire, or pull a section of bead and look inside.
• Top up if it's low: Add fresh sealant through the valve with an injector.
• Peel out old dried sealant: Clumps add weight and don't seal anything.

Not sure how to check? Bring your bike into any of our shops and we'll show you. It's a quick job once you've seen it done.

Beyond tires, a gravel repair kit needs a bit more than a road one. Your rides are longer, the surfaces are rougher, and you're further from help.

• A high-volume pump: A small road mini-pump will eventually fill a 45 mm tire, but it's a long, tiring job. A pump built for higher volume does it in a fraction of the strokes. And a pump always works, while CO2 runs out.
• CO2 in 25 g cartridges, and take two: Smaller 16 g cartridges are sized for road tires. A big gravel tire needs more, and seating a tire can use up a full cartridge on its own.
• A quick link and a chain tool: Gravel drivetrains take a lot of mud and grit. A broken chain with no quick link means a long walk.
• A multitool that fits your bike: Check that it has the hex sizes for your bottle cage bolts, accessory mounts and seatpost clamp. Some multitools also include a tire plug tool.

Worth adding: a derailleur hanger. Chances are yours won't break. But a stick in the derailleur or a hard knock on a rock can bend or snap one, and without a spare that ends your ride. Hangers are frame-specific, so bring your bike in or tell us what you ride and we'll get you the right one.

Lights:

• Run a front and rear light on every fall ride: Even if you plan to be home in daylight. Visibility on the way back to the trailhead matters as much as on the gravel.

Fenders:

• They keep you warmer and drier: Most of the water on a wet gravel ride comes up off your own front wheel.
• They save your drivetrain: Less grit on the chain and derailleur means less wear and fewer mechanicals.
• They're good manners on a group ride: Nobody wants to sit behind a rooster tail.
• Check your clearance: Many gravel frames have fender mounts, but tire width matters. If you're not sure what fits, bring the bike in and we'll check.

Navigation:

• Load your route before you leave: Put it on your head unit or download the map offline. Coverage drops out quickly on forest roads, and a route you can't see is a route you can't shortcut.
• Charge everything the night before: Head unit, lights and phone. Cold shortens battery life on all of them.

A fall gravel kit is bigger than a summer road kit, and a backpack is the wrong answer. It makes you sweat, shifts around on rough ground, and tires out your shoulders. Gravel bikes have mounts, so use them.

• A waterproof seat pack: For your tube, plug kit, pump and spare layer.
• A top tube bag: For food and your phone, so you can eat without stopping.
• A frame or bar bag: If you need room for a jacket and extra food on longer days.

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