LEBANON — Cyclists are enjoying the unpaved back roads of Vermont and New Hampshire in new ways, boosting rural businesses and shifting how residents and visitors experience the Upper Valley’s rural landscapes.

Bike sales surged during the COVID-19 pandemic as people looked for ways to safely enjoy the outdoors during lockdown. At the same time, developments in design were producing bikes more suited for unpaved than paved roads. When customers came to retailers looking to get outside, the gravel bike was waiting for them, with its thick, grippy tires, stable geometry and climb-friendly gearing.

“Gravel has exploded,” in the last four to five years, Omer and Bob’s staff member Sal Cania said last week.

“We have a lot of people coming in saying they want to get away from cars,” Cania said, tagging one of the biggest draws of gravel riding. Dirt and gravel roads have less traffic than paved roads and cars are driving at slower speeds, creating a greater sense of safety for cyclists.

The Upper Valley boasts not only plentiful back roads but several gravel-specific biking events that bring people to the region from around the world.

The Ranger gravel event, a non-competitive series of group rides and community fundraiser, takes place in Tunbridge in early June. The ride draws about 600 riders each year plus friends and family who come to enjoy the festival-like post-ride atmosphere. It brings “upwards of $50,000 into the Upper Valley economy,” said Rachel Cohen, of Jericho, Vt., who organizes the race along with her husband, Tyler.

The Vermont Overland attracts world-class athletes to West Windsor each August to compete in a rugged, 55-mile race that includes 7,000 feet of elevation gain and eight sections of Class IV roadways, mostly unmaintained public roads.

“Vermont has some of the best cycling and gravel riding in the entire world, hands down, full stop,” West Windsor resident and Vermont Overland owner and race director Ansel Dickey said last week.

And he would know.

Dickey, 29, a former competitive road cyclist, joined the U.S.A. National Cycling Team in 2013 after graduating from Killington (Vt.) Mountain School. He has competed in races worldwide, including multi-stage events in China and Azerbaijan.

In the U.S., gravel has “easily become the most popular segment of cycling,” which Dickey attributes in part to an American road infrastructure that is unfriendly to bicycles. He calls it “the friendliest segment of the sport,” for its emphasis on community and events that aren’t focused on solely racing.

It was the sense of community that attracted Chris Brits, 49, of Bristol, Conn., to the sport in 2018, after a lifetime of road cycling. “It broadens your spectrum within the sport, and lets people come in with different abilities,” he said.

Brits competed in the Overland race this year and is a regular visitor to the region, which is “a special place and a great community for biking,” he said.

Adventure and connection

Riding bikes on back roads is nothing new of course.

“People who live in Vermont have always been riding on gravel roads, they just did it on road bikes,” Dickey said. He has a “run what you brung” philosophy, he said, and is happy to see people enjoying the region’s back roads on whatever type of bikes they’re riding.

Gravel appeals to people who want a greater sense of adventure and connection with the outdoors than road riding affords.

“I love getting out in the williwacks,” Barnard resident Chris Leister, 69, said recently. He and his partner Marcia Gauvin, 61, of White River Junction, are close to completing a three-year project to map and complete a gravel bike ride in each of Vermont’s 251 towns. Currently at 209 towns, the couple charts their progress on a website, https://251vtgravelrides.org, where they provide maps, photos and descriptions of each ride.

“There’s so much variety, even on the same road at different times of year, or before and after a rain,” Gauvin said. “It’s incredible the things you see from a bicycle seat.”

In the hot summer months, unpaved roads offer benefits over riding on asphalt. “It’s shadier along the back roads and you make your own breeze,” when you ride, Gauvin said.

The emergence of electric bikes has also made more remote stretches of road accessible to a wider array of riders.

“The e-bike has been an ultimate equalizer. With the e-bike option, we’ve seen a lot more couples, and growth in the number of women on our trips, especially solo women,” said Jake Fergus, director of sales and marketing for Wisconsin-based Trek Travel, which offers more than a hundred multi-day guided bicycling trips globally each year, including three different trips in northern Vermont.

In 2019, the company offered its first gravel bike trip, which didn’t attract much interest. But the Green Mountain State is now “one of our best-selling North American destinations,” for gravel trips, Fergus said.

Dickey said that he loves that he and his father, who is 70 and an avid cyclist, can go biking together thanks to e-bikes.

Economic boost

Whatever people are riding on New England’s back roads, they seem to be boosting overall tourism, which in Vermont is a $3 billion industry that supports more than 10% of the state’s workforce. In New Hampshire, tourism comprises roughly 7% of workers and brought $2.3 billion into the state in 2023.

Without data such as lift ticket sales or miles of trail built, the growth of gravel biking can be difficult to quantify.

Even bike sales are tricky. Specialized sells three different models of bikes under the “gravel” category, which brand development manager Sean Cavanaugh said attests to the popularity of gravel riding. The prices range from a $1,300 entry-level model to an ultra-light carbon setup that costs $12,000.

But cyclists are enjoying the region’s back roads on everything from mountain bikes to leisure e-bikes and road bikes.

Anecdotally at least, bike-related businesses report interest in cycling’s newest niche. “In the last four to five years we’ve seen an exponential increase in gravel bike sales,” Cania, of Omer and Bob’s, said.

Those sales increase business for bike mechanics and other ancillary businesses.

Aaron August of Richmond, Vt., is the owner of Class 4 Designs, which produces handmade bags and other bike accessories specifically aimed at gravel biking and “bikepacking,” which is multi-day bike riding and camping. He founded the company during the COVID-19 pandemic and loves the gravel community, which he said is “less competitive and more supportive,” than road biking.

He especially likes going for long rides where he “often doesn’t see anyone else on the road,” he said.

That pre-existing road infrastructure is a huge asset, which brings visitors to more rural and far-flung parts of the state in pursuit of adventure and beauty.

“The Overland is the most economically impactful event that we do,” in terms of revenue, Peter Varkonyi, owner of the Brownsville Butcher and Pantry in West Windsor said recently. His store provides the post-race meal for riders and spectators. It is also a popular stopping place for cyclists exploring the area’s back roads.

Varkonyi calls cycling visitors the “tip of the spear” of what he calls a new “agrarian tourism economy,” fueled by adventure-seeking outdoor enthusiasts. They are tourists who “care about the preservation of the spaces” that they enjoy, he said.

Sharing the road

Occasionally the presence of bikes where they haven’t been seen in great numbers can be a source of friction.

Horse riders enjoy unpaved roads for the same reasons cyclists do, and encounters between the two have increased in recent years, Debbie Briscoe, a member of the New Hampshire Horse Council Trails Committee, said by email this week. But a few simple reminders can go a long way, she said.

“Bicycles, being faster and quieter than other users, can startle people and horses,” Briscoe said. “Saying, ‘Hello,’ helps horses recognize you as a person and gives the rider/driver time to prepare their horse and give friendly instructions,” she added.

Dickey believes that he’s found a place where residents support gravel biking events despite some temporary traffic interruptions as large groups of riders pass through intersections.

“The course goes through five different towns, and West Windsor, the host town which the majority of the event is in, is by far the most supportive, Dickey said.

But that wasn’t always the case.

“The first year I did this (in 2021), my inbox was full of angry emails the next day,” from people upset about traffic delays and unexpected bike encounters, Dickey said.

But this year, complaints were few and “there were so many people out cheering that weren't cyclists, that just set up a picnic to watch the event go by, because they've gotten used to it,” he said.  “To see the community adopt it has been just awesome for me.”

With gravel bike sales a growth niche in the bike industry, and electric bikes making remote cycling outings accessible to more riders, “gravel is here to stay,” Fergus said.

Christina Dolan can be  reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.

CORRECTION: Sal Cania is a member of the sales team at Omer and Bob’s in Lebanon. A previous versio n of this story included a misspelling of his last name.