From LATimes.com
BRIAN E. CLARK
It isn’t always easy riding a bike around L.A. Streets weren’t designed with cyclists’ safety in mind and mountain biking trails can be intimidating for those not used to steep inclines.
That’s part of the reason why more people are heading to the dirt. They’re embracing gravel riding — sometimes known as grinding — which is something of a cross between road riding and mountain biking that takes place on unpaved roads and trails.
“When I first got a mountain bike, I crashed so much on the trails,” recalled Isabel King, who took up gravel riding during the pandemic and is now a gravel racer in L.A. “A gravel bike ride is a great compromise where you can travel at a slower speed but still get a good workout. You are away from cars and can ride many of the roads you’d do on a trail run.”
The activity has been around since the invention of bicycles, which date to the early 1800s when hardly any roads were paved, but its popularity has grown significantly in the last decade. In Southern California, there are thousands of miles of fire roads suitable for pedaling.