Officials from around the region gathered in a Wyalusing conference room in 2021 to lay out huge maps, highlighting and linking roads to form a 430-mile bikepacking loop.
“It was all hands on deck when we first did this,” said Cain Chamberlin, executive director of the Endless Mountains Heritage Region (EMHR).
The four-county region in Northeast, Pa., includes Bradford, Sullivan, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties — and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, experienced an influx of visitors looking to get away and get outside.
"They were coming here to spend time with their families. They were coming here for extra outdoor activities," said Robyn Cummings, executive director of the Bradford County Tourism Promotion Agency.
Donna Iannone was a Sullivan County Commissioner at the time and is an avid cyclist. She also served on the EMHR board. Chamberlain said Iannone suggested they create a bikepacking loop and add another opportunity to bring people to the region.
"Since we have such an abundance of dirt and gravel roads in this four-county region as it is, and us being in outdoor rec, we had all the tourism bureaus represented on our board. It was just a good partnership to create, you know, this big 430-mile bikepacking loop," he said.
The route then created a race, The Endless Mountains Grand Depart. And now the Endless Gravel PA Route Network.
Endless Gravel is a collaborative regional effort led by the EMHR. Recently, the group worked with David Landis, who develops gravel and bike packing routes for his company Village to Village Trails, to launch the Endless Gravel PA website. The online resource features 2,000 miles of professionally designed routes, including 30 curated day rides of various distances.
Cyclists can access the routes on Ride with GPS as well as the 11 welcoming hub communities across the four counties.
Gravel, a fast-growing cycling trend
Landis met Chamberlain at a Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) conference after the 430-mile bike packing loop was created. He came up and tested the route, then EMHR made changes based on his feedback.
"None of us had actually designed a loop before of this magnitude, so it was great to have David Landis come on board and really help … perfect it for us," Chamberlain said.
Landis said gravel cyclists ride on mixed surfaces, which are in abundance in the Endless Mountains. Interstate 81 is the only major interstate highway in the region, and it only cuts through eastern Susquehanna County.
"Gravel riding means you're spending at least some of your ride on unpaved roads. They may be gravel, they may be dirt. They may be, you know, even a bit rowdier sometimes,” Landis said.
A gravel bike is a mix between a road bike and a mountain. The tires are bigger, and it has lower gearing for climbing hills.
"It's a bit more capable, but it's not like a bike you would take on a mountain bike single-track trail necessarily, with like lots of rocks and drops and things like that,” he said.
Landis said a gravel bike isn’t necessarily needed to get into the sport.
He said gravel cycling is currently the biggest trend in cycling.
"People are trying to get away from traffic. They're trying to have an adventure. They're a little bit less worried about like how fast I'm going versus like what's the experience I'm having," Landis said. "What am I seeing? What am I discovering? Who am I riding with? And gravel kind of aligns with all of those trends.”
Landis said cyclists, like himself, who might have preferred riding on roads, started to see changes over the last two decades. Traffic was faster, there’s not only more cars but also bigger cars, and drivers are distracted by their cell phones, he said, adding the biggest risk cyclists face on a bike is getting hit by a car.
"It's just like all of those things make it less and less safe or fun to ride on roads," he said. "You can find some really quiet paved back roads, but in general, if you look for gravel, you kind of like solve most of those safety risks.”
Landis said people are also looking for adventure.
"They're looking to get out in the woods and explore the forest roads and go through some of the state parks and state forests that have great, great gravel roads," he said.
Reaching 'a wider demographic of cyclists'
Landis said the Endless Gravel Project began the opposite way than other typical cycling routes.
"It started with the longest, hardest ride, and then we slowly built out the easier ones,” he said.
After the 430-mile loop, they created 250-mile, 200-mile and 115-mile loops.
"We thought it'd be great to have shorter day loops that would be good for families, novice riders, people who may not have the week off to do a 430-mile loop," Chamberlain said. "We just wanted to give more options to everyone and reach a wider demographic of cyclists."
The rides vary in difficulty, which are explained on EndlessGravelPa.com.
As Cummings and Chamberlain pointed out, the region is the Endless Mountains, so expect endless mountains and elevation. It’s also home to five state parks, the D&H Rail-Trail and has access to three state forests.
There’s a 67-mile Montrose Mustache ride in Susquehanna County, which features Salt Springs State Park and “some of the toughest terrain in the county,” according to the website.
EndlessGravelPa.com also describes the elevation gain of the rides for cyclists and the percentage of roads unpaved. Montrose Mustache is 84% unpaved with 6,648 feet in elevation gain.
On the easy side, there’s the 16.6-mile Nicholson: Hop Bottom Weather Rock ride in Wyoming County with 1,776 feet of elevation on 64% unpaved roads. The website says the ride is on “quiet back roads” around Nicholson and features the historic and iconic Tunkhannock Viaduct.
The rides are all self-guided. There are no trail signs. Everything cyclists need is on the website and the app.
Cell service can be spotty, so Chamberlain said the app provides not just the route but also the closest hospitals.
EMHR also launched a bicycle-friendly business program. Businesses and even municipalities have to provide three basic amenities to be part of the program: water bottle refills, restrooms and device charging.
Wi-Fi is an additional amenity. They can also allow camping on their property, help with shipping or even provide a repair station.
That information is all on Ride with GPS.
"We don't need every restaurant or every museum to have a $5,000 repair station, but what are the basics that they're going to need so we can keep people involved?" Cummings said. "And we didn't want big distances. If someone needed something, we didn't want them to have to cycle another, you know, 40 miles for it. So that was crucial."
She said they're still building out that network.
The Endless Grand Depart
The new routes really began because of the Endless Mountains Grand Depart, a multi-day gravel cycling race. This year it begins on Sept. 12 at 7 a.m. in Towanda.
Chamberlain said cyclists from all over the country and internationally come to the Endless Mountains to race or tour the 430, 250, 200 and 115-mile loops. It’s self-guided, so the bikers are responsible for carrying all of their own gear.
"They'll make stops and take time along the way. But the serious riders … they're fierce and they're competitive, and now the communities like to track and follow them where they're at along the way too," Cummings said.
Businesses and residents track the riders, cheer them on and provide trail magic along the way like hydration, snacks or even a backyard to camp.
"I think it spurred a little bit of an additional interest outside of just hiking or just kayaking or having to leave the area to do those things. That people were like, 'How do we get in on this?'" Cummings said.
Cycling has 'always been a thing'
Cummings likes to say that “there is something for everyone in Bradford County.”
"Our kids need to see all that's happening here and all the opportunity that's here, and this was a big part of that,” she said of gravel biking in the region.
The gravel routes complement what the Endless Mountains already has to offer, Chamberlain said.
"We have an amazing water trail ... great trails for hiking, camping, and things like that … cycling has always been a thing here for sure, but this was just a way to capitalize on a new kind of cycling with what we had already at hand," he said.
