As spring approaches in the northern hemisphere, today's Readers' Rig is a gravel grinder from the back roads of Toronto, Canada built around a classic Ritchey Swiss Cross frame, Ultegra gearing and Enve carbon clincher wheels. The ultimate bike for some on and off bitumen adventures?

While it is true that fitness is fitness, the best path to success in racing is to match your training and fitness to the requirements of the event. Let’s take a look at some of the gravel races I’ve done to see what’s specific about gravel competitions.

New Zealand is an amazing tourist destination and so as part of Chris Selden's one year travel plan around the world, it was an obvious stop in his itinerary. Not so obvious would be to do the 119km Slicks and Stones cyclosportive on a mixture of gravel and tar roads, but due to his father now living in New Zealand and being the organiser - did he really have a choice?

Italy, land of vino, pasta, Fausto Coppi and home of the ultimate retro-ride. L’Eroica, “the Heroic,” runs every October, but it has been canceled for 2020. PEZman Leslie Reissner looks back to when he was lucky enough to join the participants enjoying some fine weather, great food and some truly terrible roads on heavy bicycles with inappropriate gearing and lousy brakes.

Andrea Tafi won Paris-Roubaix in 1999, but it was no surprise. The Northern cobbles are in his Tuscan blood with second, third, fifth and tenth places during his career. Robin Morton spoke to Andrea about his win and riding gravel in the US.

We have shelves full of books about the great climbs of the world, and about effective training but, oddly, one cannot recall a book specifically devoted to the art and practice of going uphill. Now Selene Yeager, has nicely filled that gap with her book, “Climb!", which indeed deserves the exclamation mark.

The first UCI one day road race of the year is New Zealand's Gravel and Tar, a gruelling slog around the hills and gravel roads of the Manawatu region. PEZman Chris Selden was on hand to check it out up close this past weekend.

Toolbox: With the hot, humid days of August drawing to a close and gravel rides and cyclocross upon us, our on-bike demands of our bodies is going to change. Yet many of us don’t. We continue to treat the bike as the bike, one and the same, which often leads us to lower back, hip, and shoulder pain as we change our style of riding.

Aug 22, 2019 - The 2019 Vuelta a España starts on Saturday and we have all the team news from Spain. Will the Giro climb Etna on gravel roads? - Top Story. Race reports from Denmark, Veenendaal and Zottegem. Other cycling news: Tour of Britain riders, rider contracts and transfers, gravel racing in New Zealand and Bianchi's final tribute to Felice Gimondi. Viva la Vuelta!